Diagon Burning
by One Eyed Jack
Summary: Harry Potter is one of few who remains skeptical when Lucius Malfoy emerges from Azkaban with a full pardon and a plan to start an evil-fighting organization. Exposing Malfoy as a fraud won't be easy amid lies, fights, and hidden agendas. HD slash.
1. The ThirteenthEver Escape from Azkaban

Author name: 1 Eyed Jack

Author email: 

Category: Drama

Sub Category: Action/Adventure

Rating: R

Spoilers: all books

Summary: Harry Potter is one of few who remains skeptical when Lucius Malfoy emerges from Azkaban with a full pardon and a plan to start an evil-fighting organization. Exposing Malfoy as a fraud won't be easy amid lies, fights, and hidden agendas. One motorway accident, two definitions for SPEW, three levels of Ministry alert, and lots of four-nication.

DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Some canon information in this chapter comes from the Lexicon.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Gena, Oli and co., and Viola for the betas.

**Diagon Burning **

Chapter 1:  
The Thirteenth-Ever Escape From Azkaban

It was 4 AM and the owl from the _Prophet_ had already arrived.

_LUCIUS MALFOY GRANTED FULL PARDON  
_

"Ron," Harry hissed. "Wake up!"

"What?" Ron rolled over, his arm dangling off the side of his bed. He pulled a pillow over his ears. "Go away, Hermione."

"Ron." Harry smacked him. "Get up."

Ron sat up and glanced at his orange bedside clock, brought to Grimmauld Place from his room at the Burrow. "Good morning," he snarled. "Four in the morning, is it? Let's make a habit of this, Harry."

"Shut up and read this." Harry passed the _Prophet_ to Ron. He pawed around his nightstand for matches. Harry wished, not for the first time, that the Blacks had stooped so low as to install Muggle conveniences. Electricity would be nice about now.

Harry lit a stub of candle while Ron opened the _Prophet_ and whistled. "Damn."

Harry grabbed his glasses and held out his hand. "Let me look at it. I'll read aloud."

Ron passed the article back. "We should wake up Hermione."

"Fine. I'll stay here."

Ron tiptoed back in, accompanied by Hermione, who was wearing a dour expression and a flowered nightdress. He flopped down on the foot of Harry's bed.

"Good morning." Hermione yawned, taking a seat on Ron's rumpled covers. "I wanted to wake up Ginny, but Ron wouldn't let me."

Harry and Ron exchanged a glance. "Three's enough, I guessed." Ron shrugged.

"We were in the same room," Hermione snapped. "It couldn't have been that much trouble. As much as I appreciate being a member of the boys' club—" She took a look at their faces. "Oh, never mind, just give me the paper."

Harry obliged. "_Lucius Malfoy Granted Full Pardon_," she read. "There's absolutely no light in here, hang on—" She dragged the candle closer. "Honestly, what a stupid rule, no magic on holidays. Right, where was I?"

"The title?" Ron said.

Hermione gave him a sour look and turned back to the paper. "_Malfoy Granted Full Pardon by Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent_—goodness, it looks as if we're about to enjoy a fair and unbiased bit of reporting, doesn't it?"

"She did write up that interview with Harry," Ron said.

"Her only redeemable action," Hermione agreed. "Too bad she only did it because I blackmailed her into it. Don't try to defend her, Ron. You'll just dig your own grave."

Primly, she turned back to the article. "_London, August 1st. Last night, Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge made his second-most stunning announcement in months, after acknowledging the return of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named this past June. Lucius Malfoy was granted a full and, in the eyes of the __Wizarding public, long-awaited pardon._"

"Long-awaited?" Ron blinked. "Long-awaited in the same way as OWL results, maybe?"

Hermione blinked. "I looked forward receiving to my OWL results."

Ron opened his mouth and then closed it. "I didn't mean that literally."

Hermione rolled her eyes and continued to read. "_'Lucius and I have been friends for so long,' Minister Fudge said at a press conference last evening, 'I just couldn't comprehend why he would have turned to You-Know-Who, especially after that whole Imperius fiasco the last go-round.'_"

Harry laughed.

Hermione favored him with a quelling McGonagall-like glare before continuing. "_'So when Narcissa Malfoy came to me with the true story,' the Minister explained, 'I was only too glad to listen.' Unnamed sources very close to the Minister told the _Prophet_ that Mrs. Malfoy arrived at the Fudge mansion early last Saturday and remained there for a number of hours, pleading her case. When asked about Mrs. Malfoy's involvement, the Minister added that she was 'most persuasive'_—oh, I bet she was," Hermione snorted by way of editorial. Ron made a face, but Harry just felt angry. Narcissa Malfoy was the woman who had used Kreacher to lure him to the Department of Mysteries. If he had never gone, Sirius would still be alive.

"_'Obviously Lucius is the only one who can speak of his ordeal with the utmost integrity,' said Minister Fudge, 'and I wouldn't like to go into full details until he's completely recovered and ready to disclose them. Issuing this pardon is the least I could do to repair the honor of this Ministry and more importantly, the damage to the Malfoy family. The last thing my administration wants to be responsible for is putting an innocent man in Azkaban.'_" Hermione glanced up. "Oh, Harry."

Harry wanted to smash something.

Ron looked sideways at Harry. "Keep reading, Hermione."

She put down the paper. "Harry?"

He cut her off. "Finish it, will you?" Even though Harry didn't think about Sirius all the time anymore; he'd thought about him a lot at the beginning of the summer. He'd figured that being at Grimmauld Place would have made it worse, but it didn't, really. He hadn't known Sirius long enough to tie him to any one place, except Azkaban.

Hermione stared at him for a few seconds, obviously wanting to say more. But she picked up the _Prophet_ anyway, perusing the column until she found the place where she had left off. "_Despite the Minister's silence, the _Prophet_ was able to obtain the true version of events from an anonymous source very close to the Malfoy family. _

"Apparently, Mr. Malfoy was diligently laboring in the service of Wizardkind the night of the _now-infamous attacks on the Department of Mysteries and overstayed the normal working hours. Hearing a disturbance down the hall, he rushed to the scene of the battle. Despite past disagreements and general ill-will, Mr. Malfoy leapt to the aid of Potter and his compatriots when he recognized the individuals attacking them as Death Eaters, an even greater threat to the Wizarding world than pint-sized celebrities with delusions of grandeur._" Harry's ears burned.

"She must mean Draco then," Ron said loudly. "Except for the celebrity part." The joke fell flat. There was an uncomfortable silence.

"There's about two paragraphs more," Hermione said tentatively.

Harry shrugged. "Yeah, go on." He didn't really want to listen.

"_When Dumbledore arrived on the scene and used his Anti-Disapparation Jinx to contain the remaining Death Eaters, Mr. Malfoy was still in the thick of the battle. He managed to get caught with the others. _

"_Mr. Malfoy and Dumbledore have a history of disputes. Most notable are Mr. Malfoy's alarm at the Headmaster's unorthodox choice of faculty (werewolves and malicious half-giants) and their altercations over how Hogwarts School should have responded to a series of attacks on students four years ago (Mr. Malfoy favored a dynamic, preemptive policy while Headmaster Dumbledore took a more hands-off, ineffective approach). _

"Even so, 'the Malfoy family,' according to a statement issued by their long-term solicitor Cheswick Parkinson, esq., 'would like in no way to insinuate that Headmaster Dumbledore trapped Mr. Malfoy on purpose because of their regrettable history of disagreements. The Malfoy family has no wish to press charges, unless further evidence incriminating Headmaster Dumbledore surfaces. Mr. Malfoy strongly believes that this is a time for the Wizarding community to bind together in order to face our most dreadful foe. He feels that prosecuting Dumbledore for his attempt to dishonor the Malfoy name and lock him away in Azkaban for life would not be conducive to this spirit of unity.

"'In fact,' Mr. Parkinson continued, 'Mr. Malfoy was so struck by the ferocity of the Death Eaters during his detention in Azkaban that he plans to put forth a sizeable amount of money to create an organization dedicated to stopping He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and the degenerates who follow him.' The Prophet_ will, of course, bring you news of further developments concerning Mr. Malfoy's admirable venture and urges the wizarding public to donate its resources and manpower toward seeing it through to completion. _

"Mr. Malfoy, meanwhile, has been removed from Azkaban and is currently purported to be at home in his Wiltshire mansion, recuperating in the care of his wife, son—and various mistreated house elves," Hermione editorialized with a grim smile. "_Our thoughts and prayers are of course with the Malfoy family in this most trying of times. 'I'm just glad,' said Mr. Malfoy's tearful son Draco, 16, 'that my father's home'. Draco, we're glad too. _

"For more of Rita Skeeter's exclusive interview with the young Mr. Malfoy, see page A3."

Ron blinked. "Draco, we're glad too?"

Hermione threw the paper down in disgust. "This is why I hate the Ministry. Not your Dad, Ron, or Kingsley or Tonks or anyone in the Order, but the rest is so bureaucratic and stupid and blind. How can anyone swallow a story like that? About Lucius Malfoy, of all people!"

Harry felt very tired.

"I'd like to strangle Lucius Malfoy and smear his brains across a shoelace," Ron said.

Hermione blinked. "I don't think that's physically possible, Ron."

Harry rolled over and closed his eyes.

----

"_'Breakfast was the most depressing thing.'_" Fred levitated his pumpkin juice up to mouth level and took a sip as George held out a copy of the _Prophet_. "_Young Draco's storm-gray eyes went misty with tears as he remembered his fatherless meals. 'Looking across the table and seeing his chair empty was almost too much to bear. But I had to be strong for Mummy.'_ Oh Fred!" George's voice cracked dramatically. "It's so moving. I don't know if I shall be able to continue much longer." He wiped away mock tears.

"That dear, wronged boy." Fred took the paper and cleared his throat. Ginny snorted into her toast and marmalade. If the image of Draco Malfoy sitting around with his "storm-gray" eyes going "misty with tears" wasn't bad enough, her brothers' dramatic reading was certainly pushing Rita Skeeter's exclusive interview over the edge. It would be a lot funnier, she thought, if Lucius Malfoy hadn't actually been released from Azkaban.

"_'I dreamt about Father every night.'_" George leapt on top of the breakfast table in a burst of dramatic energy.

Fred made a lewd noise. "Did he now?" Ginny giggled and pulled a plate of sausages out of George's way.

"_'I expected to see him every morning, kissing Mummy or helping the house elves. And it was a shock all over again to come downstairs and see his warm smile gone, his chair filled only by dust mites.' _

"The Prophet_: Would you call your father an affectionate man? _

"The poor fatherless boy's eyes brimmed over with tears." Ginny made a mental tick mark. That was the seventh time Malfoy had cried in as many paragraphs. "_'Undoubtedly. I received a letter the day after my father was mistakenly taken,' the poor courageous boy paused, wrestling with his grief. 'He must have sent it just before his arrest. I know it by heart. It says, _'_You are the best son a father could wish for.' I sleep with it under my pillow at night. It is very special to me.' _

"If such familial devotion does not prove a man's innocence, what does? This Prophet_ reporter challenges Albus Dumbledore to show half the affection and loyalty displayed by Lucius Malfoy and his courageous son."_

"George, get off the table immediately," Mrs. Weasley said, bustling into the kitchen. "What have I told you about standing on the furniture?"

George ignored her. "Have you seen the paper, Mum?"

"Read her the part about You-Know-Who," Ginny said.

Mrs. Weasley glowered. "I don't care to hear what a Malfoy has to say about the Dark Lord, or anything else for that matter."

"_'Never once has my father even considered the company of such an undesirable houseguest as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,'_" George read. "_'He's far too busy hosting charity socials and organizing village fairs to entertain any company.'_"

"George Weasley, put that down now!"

George edged around the side of the breakfast table while Mrs. Weasley advanced, wand in hand.

"_'My father prides himself on being a kind and gentle soul who enjoys the company of religious men, starving children, and small, fuzzy animals.'_"

Mrs. Weasley frowned. "Malfoy couldn't have said that."

"Seetyseglif," Fred offered through a mouthful of sausage.

Ginny translated. "See it yourself."

"It's right here, in black and white." George held out the paper.

"We didn't doctor it." Fred put his hand on his heart. "On my honor."

Mrs. Weasley looked from one twin to the other, gave a resigned sigh, and reached for the paper. George jerked it back. "Don't be rude," Mrs. Weasley snapped. "You offered it to me."

"I saw that look in your eye." George backed away. "You're going to confiscate it."

"Mum!" Fred looked outraged.

"I was going to do nothing of the sort."

"Now, Mum," Fred said, the portrait of earnestness, "you taught us never to tolerate a lie."

Ginny snickered. Mrs. Weasley made a frustrated noise. "What I should have taught you is when your mother tells you to do something you jump to it. Now hand it over, George, and let me put it away before I really get angry."

George, who had been waving the paper like a sword at Mrs. Weasley, dropped his arm. "Put it away? But why?"

Mrs. Weasley looked over her shoulders at the stairs. "Harry's going to be down to breakfast soon," she whispered, "and I don't want to upset him."

George rolled his eyes. "Is that what this is all about?"

"Look, Mum." Fred leaned across the table, putting his elbow in the sausages. Considering that he was probably going to eat them all anyway, Ginny figured it didn't really matter. "Malfoy has been trying to get to Harry for years."

"And from what I heard about last Quidditch season, he succeeded." Mrs. Weasley shot the twins a venomous glance.

Fred leaned back, scooting the sausages with him. "Yeah, well, the nasty little ferret could do with a black eye."

"Gave him a little bit of color." George snickered. Mrs. Weasley rounded on him. "Sorry," he amended.

"Harry subscribes to the _Daily Prophet_ anyway," Ginny said. "He gets it in his room every morning. He's probably seen the article already."

"He might not have noticed," Mrs. Weasley snapped.

George turned to the front page. It was almost entirely consumed by a smiling photograph of Lucius Malfoy. "Yeah. They were really subtle about the release, weren't they?"

There was the sound of feet on the stairs. Mrs. Weasley glanced over her shoulder and extended her hand. "Come on, George. If the poor boy is upset, I don't want to make it any worse."

George rolled his eyes. "He'd resent being called a poor boy." He handed her the paper anyway.

She banished it with a flick of her wand. "Thank you," she said as Harry, Ron, and Hermione burst into the kitchen. Ginny scooted over, making room for someone to sit beside her. She tried not to be disappointed when Ron plopped down. Harry sat next to Fred.

"Oh good, sausages!" Ron reached across the table, but Fred yanked the plate away.

"Get your own," he said, pushing another one into his mouth.

"I think there are cold eggs in the pan, Ron," George suggested, sitting on the other side of Harry.

Hermione, of course, sat down by Ron. "It's not really cold eggs, is it?"

"No, Hermione," Mrs. Weasley replied. "Harry, can I make you anything special, dear?"

"Harry can have a sausage," Fred said.

"What?" Ron spluttered. "Why?"

"Because he's not funny looking," George replied.

"Or a relative," Harry amended, taking two sausages and throwing one to Ron. Fred looked mildly offended.

Mrs. Weasley put her hands on her hips. "The plates are down at the end of the table, boys."

"Sorry, Mrs. Weasley," Harry said through a mouthful of sausage.

"That's quite all right, dear."

"Hermione, where were you this morning?" Ginny leaned across Ron to ask.

"Ron woke me up," she said, as if she couldn't decide whether or not to fault him for it. "He and Harry wanted to show me the _Daily Prophet_." As if on cue, everybody's eyes flicked to Harry. He took a bite of sausage. "I guess you've seen it," Hermione said, noticing the direction of Mrs. Weasley's stare. "The headline and everything?"

"We had a copy," she said tersely.

"Do you think, I mean, how is Malfoy's release going to affect what the Order is doing?"

A smile tightened Mrs. Weasley's face. "It's all going to be fine, dear. I promise."

"Oh," Hermione said. "Right."

"Pass the sausages, please," Harry said. Ginny couldn't tell if he was taking it well or not.

"Er, sure, Harry," Fred gave him the plate.

No one spoke as Harry picked one up and plopped it in his mouth, but Mrs. Weasley glared at the twins, obviously thinking that Harry's lack of reaction was their doing. "You know, I can't stop thinking about that interview with Draco Malfoy." Harry finally said, after half a minute of dead silence.

Ginny distinctly heard her mother squeak. "That was brilliant!" Ron said, oblivious. "Reading it was almost as good as the whole ferret thing."

Hermione sniffed. "I'd be ashamed to print such rubbish if I ran the _Prophet_."

"If you ran the _Prophet_ the Order would have a lot less problems with bad press, wouldn't it?" George countered.

"Fred and George were giving a dramatic reading," Ginny said as Mrs. Weasley glowered.

Ron perked up. "Did you do the ferret voice and everything?"

"Need you ask?" Fred smiled as George nicked the last of Ron's sausage from in front of him.

"You know what made my day?" Harry took a satisfied bite of sausage. "When Skeeter asked Malfoy about me, he started to cry."

George looked at Mrs. Weasley and raised an eyebrow.

----

Draco was indeed close to tears when he walked downstairs and discovered that the Fudges had already arrived. His father had invited them to dinner within moments of his release. While Draco was able to appreciate the politic of such a move, he had sat through enough of the Minister's policy speeches to be anticipating the get-together with as much zeal as a bad case of gonorrhea, or double History of Magic. Capable of reading his thoughts, as only mothers were, his mother had already forbidden him from faking or inducing illness, removed the Manor from the Floo network for the evening, and locked his broomstick in Grandfather's old Iron Maiden in the dungeons.

Draco could always walk out the back door, but it was wet and dark and there was nothing for miles except a Muggle dairy farm and cows gave him hives. The best course of action was to approach to whole incident as a hardening experience. If he could survive dinner, no torture or interrogation in the world would be able to break him.

Besides, the house elves were making his favorite soup.

Draco reached the bottom of the stairs and cast a wistful glance out the front doors, just closing behind the Fudges. The Minister was bending down to let a house-elf take his over-robe, laughing at something Narcissa had said. Dressed in sleek black, she was as stunning as always, and even more so next to Fudge's wife. Nearly twice as tall and three times as wide as her husband, the woman looked distinctly bovine. His father, too bad for him, was kissing her hand. Obviously starved for physical contact, the cow turned magenta and started jiggling with joy. Draco felt ill. He turned to rush back up the stairs and hide under his bed.

"Ah, Draco!" Too late. His father had spotted him. Reluctantly, Draco turned around and walked into the entry hall. He jammed his hands in his pockets and tried not to scowl. "We've been waiting."

"I'm sorry," Draco said, fishing for an excuse that would go over well in the current company. "I was just reading the latest issue of _UK Ministry Workers' Digest._" He turned to the Minister. "I thought your article against overtime payments was brilliantly reasoned."

"Well." Fudge blinked several times, taken aback. "I don't know of many young people who read the _Digest_. Actually, I don't know of many _people_ who read the _Digest_."

"Draco has his own subscription," Narcissa said proudly. It wasn't completely true. He had read the latest issue cover to cover in the waiting room of Parkinson's office last Tuesday when his mother had Flooed in to finalize the legal details of Father's release. She hadn't trusted him home alone and then hadn't allowed him in on the actual meeting. It had been, perhaps, the most boring afternoon of his life. "Draco's been looking forward to this dinner all week, Minister," his mother said. "He begs us to go and watch you whenever you make a speech."

Fudge exchanged a surprised smile with his wife. "You're obviously a very intelligent young man."

"I don't believe you have ever met," Lucius said. "Minister, this is my son, Draco." Even in a wheelchair, Draco's father was far more impressive than the Minister, who looked as foppish and insignificant as ever in a set of dress robes so lime-green they should have been banned.

"I am honored, Minister," Draco said, bowing his head to hide his smirk.

Fudge extended his hand. "It is a pleasure indeed to meet the son of such a fine ally as old Lucius here." Fudge smacked Lucius on the back in what he probably thought was an affectionate manner. Lucius winced. "You must feel that you have a lot to live up to, young man."

Draco smiled down at the wheelchair. "Father always did have very tall expectations for me." His father coughed.

Fudge looked mildly concerned. "Something stuck in the throat, Lucius?"

His father glared at Draco. "No, everything's fine."

"Father is recovering from pneumonia," Draco improvised. "Terrible ventilation in Azkaban."

"I did always find it a bit drafty there myself. That prison is due for a renovation, but things are spread so thin at the Ministry right now..." Fudge scowled. "From the financial side, You-Know-Who chose a very inconvenient time to resurrect himself. No common courtesy whatsoever." He shook his head. "But that is my problem. Don't let me bore you with it. I hope you're making a firm recovery, Lucius. I've always found pneumonia vexing."

Lucius pounded on his chest sardonically. "It's been an uphill battle."

"Mummy was at his bedside day and night," Draco pitched in. "She's never had any formal training, but she is a talented Healer."

Narcissa slipped her arm around Draco's shoulders and gave him a squeeze. "I had help," she said, looking at him fondly. "I had to force Draco to go to bed at night. He was so happy to have his father back. He didn't want to lose him again."

Fudge smiled blankly. Draco sniffed, trying to will a tear.

"My only regret is that we could not restore dear Lucius's ability to walk," Narcissa said, lightly touching the handle of Lucius's wheelchair.

Fudge's wife let out a strangled little sob and dabbed her eye with a hideous lace hanky. "Such devotion." She hiccoughed. "It's beautiful."

"Yes." Draco had to agree.

Narcissa smiled. "Draco, I want you to meet Minister Fudge's wife, Matilde."

The female Fudge was perhaps the most unfortunate looking person Draco had ever seen: a fat little dollop of a woman with more chins than his father had house elves. He felt slightly uncomfortable shaking her hand. "I'm charmed."

"Oh, Cornelius, he's a little darling!" Draco did not appreciate being talked about as if her were a baby Puffskein, but a squeeze from his Mother prompted him to swallow his indignation. "Lucius, you've raised your son so well."

"I am only glad to have another opportunity to fulfill my fatherly duties." He gave her a smooth smile. "Cornelius, if you'd be so kind as to wheel me over to the table, we could start with dinner."

"It is really too bad about your legs, Lucius," Fudge said, grabbing hold of the chair. "And with that pneumonia, too! You should claim compensation from the Dementors."

"We don't want to cause any more fuss than we have already, Minister." Narcissa slid into her seat at the far end of the table. "A lawsuit would just complicate things."

"I don't suppose Dementors have many assets," Fudge remarked pensively. "Being demons or soulless wraiths or whatever it is those buggers are."

"I think any litigation would be born out of principle alone," Lucius replied. "I'm sure Parkinson could dredge up grounds for a suit if I was feeling very petty."

"Principle," Fudge echoed, winking at Lucius. "That's something you do have quite a lot of, Malfoy, isn't it?"

Lucius smiled. Draco suspected that his father had no idea what Fudge was talking about. Draco himself certainly didn't. "Narcissa was just saying that to me the other night." Glasses of cabernet sauvignon materialized on the table for everyone except his mother, who was having her usual cranberry juice and vodka.

"I've always liked men with integrity," Fudge proclaimed, plopping down beside Draco's father. "They are a vanishing species, Lucius, like the Golden Snidget—crushed inside the glove of a cruel, callous, and self-serving world. You, Malfoy, are a Golden Snidget, a true find, a bastion of morality and truth."

Lucius inclined his head. "You are too kind, Cornelius." Draco coughed into his napkin.

"Pneumonia isn't contagious, is it?" Fudge broke off, looking genuinely concerned.

"The poor dear," his wife cooed.

Lucius glared at Draco.

"I think," Draco said, setting down his napkin and pasting on his best replica of a sickly smile, "I will live."

Mrs. Fudge clapped her hands. "Oh, you overwhelm me!" She leaned forward, unleashing her ample bosom all over the ancestral linen. "A sickly master and a dying heir and you still invite us into your hearth and home when Cornelius is so obviously the cause of all your troubles! He has done you a gross disservice. You should have never listened to Dumbledore, dear."

"I didn't mean to, but you know how he gets." Fudge started to go red around the ears. "It's just so hard to say no to the savior of the free world. Ever since he defeated Grindelwald, he's been prancing around like some sort of authority. Did you know that he almost convinced the Wizengamot to appoint him Minister instead of me? Can you believe that?" He spluttered in indignation. "Dumbledore, Minister?"

"A dark day that would have been," Lucius said.

Narcissa fitted Fudge with her most charming smile. "Luckily, the Wizengamot made the right choice."

Fudge refused to be dissuaded. "Dumbledore suffers from an excess of ambition. You would not believe some of the stories he's tried to stuff down my throat—escaped hippogriffs, unregistered Animagi—who's ever heard of unregistered Animagi? He must think I'm an idiot."

Draco's parents exchanged a glance. His father shrugged. "Power corrupts," he said as the first course, a reddish broth, materialized on their plates.

"But you, Lucius, are a true angel," Mrs. Fudge cooed, before her husband could start on another spiel about Dumbledore. "Cornelius takes full responsibility for whatever harm befell you while that unscrupulous man deluded the Ministry into having you locked up in Azkaban."

"I may have lost the use of my legs," his father proclaimed, in Draco's opinion rather lamely, "but I don't blame you at all. I'm glad this whole misunderstanding was happily resolved."

Draco recognized his cue. "And I'm just glad to have my father back." He added a hacking cough for good measure.

"Have some broth, Draco, dear, it's good for the throat," his mother said.

Mrs. Fudge looked as if she was about to wet herself with sympathy. "Now, what year are you in school, young Draco?" she asked. "You must be nearly finished at Hogwarts."

"I'm a sixth year," he replied, taking a halting sip of soup. "Provided I'm well enough to return for next term."

"Draco is a prefect." Narcissa smiled. "If he keeps his grades up, he is going to be Head Boy."

"I would have told you myself," he said, "but I am painfully modest."

"You're in the same year as Harry Potter?" Fudge raised an eyebrow.

Draco looked at his soup. "Indeed."

"And what do you think of him?" It was obviously a loaded question.

Mrs. Fudge sighed angrily. "That boy is the most ridiculous—"

Draco cut her off. "I always try to be generous with Potter. But truthfully I think he's rather difficult. He has a problem sharing the limelight."

"Potter," Narcissa added, "is not a prefect."

"And rightfully so," Fudge said. "At least Dumbledore has sense in one regard, if not in many others." He nodded significantly at Lucius's wheelchair.

"Lucius, this soup is delicious!" Mrs. Fudge bellowed as soon as her husband mentioned the word Dumbledore. Draco got the sense that she was rather well acquainted with his rants. "Whatever is in it?"

"Muggle," Lucius replied, "marinated with sherry."

There was a nervous sort of pause and then Fudge giggled. "Oh, Lucius, you almost had me there."

Narcissa looked down at her napkin. "It's an old family recipe."

Lucius smiled.

Dinner passed in a series of courses and conversations. In Draco's opinion, each remark from the Fudges was more inane than the last. Dumbledore was mentioned a total of sixty-two times, Potter thirty, and Draco himself a paltry five, even though he was present and dying of pneumonia. It hardly seemed fair. It wasn't until late, between salad and dessert, that anything emerged to pique his interest. He was tonguing his sherbet despondently, pretending it was Pansy, when Fudge said, "So what is all this talk about you investing in an organization to stop He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, Lucius?"

Lucius replied with a small smile. "The rumors must have come from somewhere."

"Spit it out." As Fudge leaned forward, his ascot fell into his sherbet. The fabric looked better stained. How unfortunate. "Is there truth to the rumors?"

Lucius put both hands on the table, palms up. "You know that I have devoted my life to the service of the Ministry—"

"Of course I'm not obligating you to anything," Fudge cut him off, completely misunderstanding Lucius's preamble. "I don't want to tie you down especially after our, ah," he glanced at the wheelchair, "misunderstandings—which I of course take full responsibility for. But then again, if you are at all interested in giving me—I mean the Ministry—money, then by all means—"

Lucius's eyes narrowed. Despite his obvious annoyance, he picked up where he left off. "I have devoted my life to our Ministry. But I feel that I have not done enough. My long stay in Azkaban alerted me to the growing threat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. If he is not stopped now, we will have no chance of opposing him in the future. I feel personally responsible for this."

"Well, you needn't," Fudge said. "It's not your fault that he wants to take over the world."

Lucius's smile remained superhumanly steady. "I'm planning to put up the money to create an ancillary branch of the Ministry devoted completely to the capture and defeat of the Dark Lord."

Fudge's eyes widened. "Lucius! These are exciting thoughts!"

"They are."

"I feel myself getting excited."

Lucius held up a hand. "It's the least I could do. Of course, such an organization would need access to all the Auror records and resources to make any sort of headway."

"Whatever you need," Fudge blustered. "Oh, this will help us out of a pickle indeed. I was worrying about how to scrounge the funds to meet Auror operating costs. They're expensive idiots. All that travel to Tibet tracking Sirius Black didn't come cheap. My, my, this is a development—"

"Maybe it would be better if I just absorbed the Auror Bureau?" Lucius suggested as glasses of port materialized on the table.

"I'd feel more comfortable with you at its head instead of that spendthrift Shacklebolt." Fudge scooped up his glass. "This is truly incredible—you are truly incredible. I am simply at a loss for words."

"To a new Ministry," Lucius picked up his glass of port.

"A new Ministry," Fudge echoed and met Lucius's toast. "Merlin's teeth, it's good to have you back."

_Merlin's teeth_, Draco thought as his father tipped back his drink, _that was ridiculously easy_. He had expected the negotiations to go on for much longer; he had expected that there at least _be_ negotiations. His father, he had come to realize in the past few years, was an excellent manipulator. What his words wouldn't get him, his money could take care of. Nevertheless, observation and Draco's own experience taught him that there was generally a bit of a chase before the quarry rolled over and gave in. Either his father was ridiculously persuasive or Fudge ridiculously persuadable. Despite his mountains of filial respect, Draco was reasonability certain it was the latter.

"Now, if you'd be so kind," his father inclined his head, "I must take my medicine. It's a potion for my legs. Draco, attend to me. We wouldn't want anyone else catching the pneumonia. Narcissa, don't bore them too terribly. I won't be but a minute."

Draco stood up and took his Father's chair by the handles, wheeling him toward his study. "We will be here, dear fellow, when you return!" Fudge chortled, waving his port.

"Yes," his father hissed as the door swung shut behind them. "That's the pity, isn't it?"

"Potion for the legs?" Draco turned the lock.

"Don't be flippant," his father snapped, standing up. "My back's so stiff I really won't be able to move. What a vile contraption." He glowered at the wheelchair. "Where's my cane?"

"It will take at least nine months of extensive therapy before you will be able to attain that level of mobility, Father." Draco smirked. "Mummy would not want to see you hurt yourself."

His father placed a finger over his lips for quiet. "Nor, I suppose, would she like to see me hurt you."

"You are the one who decided to become a paraplegic." Draco deliberately ignored him, plopping down in the wheelchair and spinning round in a circle.

His father grabbed the handles, stilling him. "Don't be smart with me, Draco."

"I personally think paralysis is a brilliant idea. Not that my opinion means anything—" he flicked a smile, "although I did like how you picked up on that pneumonia thing in our exit. It was my idea."

"I'd appreciate it if you would not add any more ailments to my retinue," his father said. "I would prefer to avoid extemporaneous illness."

"It went over well," Draco protested. "They love you even more now that you almost died again. Potter's been using that strategy for years. It works repulsively well for him. It makes me want to hit him."

His father looked down his nose. "Your chatter is not becoming."

"Yes, well, aside from coughing, I've been holding myself in all night. I still don't see why you wouldn't let Pansy come."

"Then I would have had to invite Cheswick, and Fudge would have run around like a decapitated chicken thinking I was going to press charges."

"It would have been fun to watch."

His father didn't deny it. "Furthermore, you can't have a social dinner with your lawyer unless you're in danger of bankruptcy."

"We've had the Parkinsons over before," Draco protested.

"Yes. But it was just us and the Parkinsons and there was no one else around to substantiate the rumors."

"I like Pansy," Draco said sulkily.

"You're allowed to," his father replied. "Pansy is not my lawyer."

"Then why couldn't she come?"

"Get up."

"Why?"

His father grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him out of the wheelchair. "You're more amenable quiet, so it's high time to go back in."

"You know it's common knowledge that it takes at least fifteen minutes to administer leg-strengthening potion."

"You are very funny, Draco," his father said as he sat down. "But no more pneumonia and no more games. You understand me. This is my magnum opus."

Draco wondered idly if, when he was his Father's age, he would also be obsessed with legacy.

He took the handles. His father leaned forward to unlock the door. "At least we had the Muggle soup," Draco remarked as his father looked back over his shoulder. "I hope we're having fudge for dessert?"

His father's sniff was almost a laugh. He touched the side of his chair. "Patience, Draco. What was it you were telling me? Nine months of therapy before I can walk?"

"That doesn't count," Draco muttered. He reached over his father's head and opened the door.

----

It wasn't until later that night that Harry talked about Malfoy. Mrs. Weasley spent the entire day trying to avoid the subject even though Harry hadn't been able to stop thinking about it, he didn't want to discuss it with either Ron or Hermione. Ron would get angry, complain about Fudge, and then suggest they ask his dad, while Hermione would say witty, scathing things about the Ministry and then propose they talk to Mr. Weasley too. What it came down to was they didn't know any more than he did, and their only suggestion would be to appeal to an adult.

Even if Ron's dad would talk, Mrs. Weasley would force him to stop before he could tell them anything worthwhile, and then there would be a huge row, and everyone would end up more angry and miserable than they already were. So there was really no point to asking Ron and Hermione.

Halfway through the day the Order assembled, even Kingsley and Tonks, who were finding it even harder to skive off work since Voldemort's return. They said a brief hello, went straight down to the kitchen and locked the door. Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny spent the afternoon trying to listen in, but no sound leaked out. The new and improved model of Fred and George's Extendable Ears leapt away from the door as though it burned them.

When Lupin opened the door three hours later and the Order filed out, he didn't seem at all surprised to see them sitting backs to the wall in a row.

"You had better come inside," he said. "Your mother has made dinner."

The table creaked under the weight of a proper roast lamb dinner, complete with gravy and Yorkshire pudding. Nobody, of course, mentioned anything about Malfoy, but then again, they were all very busy eating.

It wasn't until after dinner, when everyone else had gone upstairs—Mr. and Mrs. Weasley to knit, which Harry supposed was code for discussing Malfoy; Ron and Ginny to play chess; and Hermione to read the _Prophet_ article one more time—that Lupin tapped him on the shoulder, charmed two cups of tea and asked him if he wanted to talk.

"Don't tell me you're surprised that Lucius Malfoy escaped from Azkaban," Lupin said mildly, sipping his tea. "It's been done before," which was the closest anyone would get to mentioning Sirius's name in front of Harry, "and Malfoy didn't even do it the hard way."

"Because making up lies about Dumbledore and bribing the Ministry is obviously the best way to escape from Azkaban."

Lupin sipped his tea and placed it on the saucer before responding. "Lucius Malfoy is not the type of man who would swim the North Sea when he could be personally escorted out by Fudge instead."

"So Fudge sees what he wants to see?"

"An innocent Malfoy with a sack of gold," Lupin agreed.

Innocent and Malfoy did not belong in the same sentence. "And what does Narcissa Malfoy have to do with this? The _Prophet_ said she convinced Fudge that he'd been wrongfully imprisoned."

Lupin choked on his tea. He put it down. "Mrs. Malfoy can be—very persuasive," he finished, swabbing his face with a napkin. "Very persuasive."

"Are you turning red?" Harry said suspiciously.

"Hot tea," Lupin said hastily.

Harry decided to drop it. "So about this evil-fighting organization that Malfoy's starting."

"Yes, that." Lupin seized the change of topic. "I think it has a lot to do with the Ministry's willingness to give Malfoy a second chance. It shows that he's a changed man."

"Do you really believe that?"

"No, but the Ministry does, and that's what counts."

"Not to me."

"Nor me, but we should have known better than to assume that Lucius Malfoy was going to rot in Azkaban for the rest of his life."

"Well, what are we going to do about it now?" Harry said. He would lose it if Lupin spouted something like "the Order has its plans," which was the sort of answer that was worse than no answer at all.

"Well," Lupin hedged, "the Order has its—"

"Don't even say it," Harry said, and left.

-----

**Notes:**

The chapter title, "The Thirteenth-Ever Escape from Azkaban," is based on the number of documented escapes in canon: Sirius Black was the first person to escape from Azkaban (PoA). Barty Crouch, Jr., may have actually escaped earlier than Sirius, but we don't learn about his escape until GoF, so we're counting him as the second person. Ten Death Eaters, including Bellatrix Lestrange, broke out of Azkaban in OotP, bringing the total to twelve (OotP 25). Lucius, therefore, makes thirteen. (to satisfy the canon nerds, who you just know would want know, "Why thirteen?")


	2. Sometimes on Thursdays

**Author name:** 1 Eyed Jack

**Author email:**

**Category:** Drama

**Sub Category:** Action/Adventure

**Rating:** R

**Spoilers:** all books

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Some canon information in this chapter comes from the Lexicon.

**Summary:** Harry Potter is one of the few who remain skeptical when Lucius Malfoy emerges from Azkaban with a full pardon and a plan to start an evil-fighting organization. Exposing Malfoy as a fraud won't be easy amid lies, fights, and hidden agendas. One motorway accident, two definitions for SPEW, three levels of Ministry alert, and lots of four-nication. Chapter 2: Lucius Malfoy unveils his evil-fighting organization, Harry gets in a fight, Draco gets ass, and Pansy does not get to see the topiary maze.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** Special thanks to **emerald123**, Oli and co., and Viola for the betas. **Naodrith** and Alissa Raboin also looked over earlier versions of the fic.

**Diagon Burning**

Chapter 2:  
Sometimes on Thursdays

"This is an opportunity for you, Pansy," her father said as their Rolls-Royce ground to a halt outside the Manor.

She pressed her face to the window, surveying the Manor through tinted glass. "I know."

The car door clicked open. The Malfoy family house-elf was far too well mannered to introduce itself, so it waited silently as they climbed out of the carriage before it went in after her luggage. Its legs were too short to reach up to the open door, so it scrambled comically against the side of the carriage, finally grabbing the frame and pulling itself up like a pole vaulter. Pansy snickered. It emerged several moments later, staggering under the weight of her valise.

She followed Father up to the Manor. The door was made of a rich, dark wood and framed by two statues—a rearing snake and a young witch. She was dressed in a loose tunic, hair and garment blown askew. Her face was carved in great detail, the breadth of her forehead, the curve of her nose, and the notch in her lip as precise as Pansy's own. Her eyes, however, were blank and pupilless—smooth, untouched marble. Her hands reached upward over her head, fists entwined in a stone banner protruding from the snake's mouth. It ran the length of the doorway, from statue to statue, and was carved with the words:

LUCIUS MALFOY, 1801  
AURO QUAEQUE IANUA PANDITUR

Before her father could raise his hand to the knocker, the door swung open by itself, and another silent house-elf beckoned them in as it bowed back into the shadows of the entry hall.

The room didn't end. Instead, it stretched flat for at least fifty meters, finally curling up into a grand marble staircase. Even so, it seemed twice as tall as it was long. Pansy had no doubt that the vaulted ceiling stretched even higher than Hogwarts's Great Hall. Near the top, the walls broke into elaborate, blown glass windows, flooding the entire room with light. The floor was black marble and the walls the same light gray stone as the exterior; every few meters hung a portrait of people who must have been Malfoy ancestors. None of them looked at her directly. They were far too polite.

That wasn't true, however, of all Malfoys. Draco stood at the foot of the marble stairs, leaning casually against the banister and staring at her intensely. She had put off packing in order to be purposefully late. He had probably been waiting for her all this while, but from his indolent pose, hardly anyone would have been able to tell. She chose not to look at him, and instead smiled at her father. He looked down at her and stroked her hair.

"Cheswick, welcome!" A pair of double doors swung open and Mr. Malfoy wheeled himself into the lobby.

"Lucius!" Her father inclined his head. "Your hospitality is, as always, most generous." He walked away from Pansy, taking the handles of Mr. Malfoy's chair. "Let me help you. How are your legs?"

"My legs? Oh." Mr. Malfoy looked down rather ruefully at the wheelchair. "I'm afraid I find their condition much the same."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Tell that to my legs, Cheswick," Mr. Malfoy replied. "Perhaps they will make a better show of it in order to alleviate your grief. Back into the study, if you would." He looked back significantly at Father. "We have a few last minute things to discuss, about the visit and other business. I'm glad Pansy could make it out here. Draco's been asking me if she could come for the past month."

Her father looked at her. "Pansy's very pleased to be here."

"Why don't you take Pansy on a tour of the house, Draco? Show her the topiary maze." Mr. Malfoy shot his voice down the hall. Draco was still lounging at the base of the stairs. Mr. Malfoy turned back to Pansy's father. "I always wanted a topiary maze. It was Narcissa's out-of-Azkaban present." 

"What a thoughtful gift." Pansy's father met her gaze above the wheelchair and raised his eyebrow.

"I thought so," Mr. Malfoy replied as Pansy's father wheeled him into the study. The door slammed shut behind them.

Pansy turned her attention to Draco. He stared at her for a moment before taking off up the marble steps. She chased after him. He didn't wait at the top of the staircase, but took off down a side corridor. She lost sight of him until she rounded the bend and he was there, waiting to slam her up against the wall and kiss her on the mouth. "You made me wait," he whispered. She felt his breath on her face.

Pansy smiled, and kissed his bottom lip. "Is this the topiary maze?" She hooked her fingers under the waistband of his pants.

"Shut up," he replied. "You can look at it on your own bloody time." 

----

When they came down for dinner, Pansy's father was gone. Draco looked surprised, though, when Mr. Malfoy said he wanted to speak to Pansy alone. "What do you want?" he had snapped.

"Go talk to your mother," his father replied. 

"Brandy?" he asked Pansy as she wheeled him into his study and clicked the door shut behind them. He unlocked a cabinet next to his desk and pulled out a decanter.

"Yes," Pansy said as he filled two glasses and offered her one.

He gestured to a brown leather sofa opposite his desk. "Sit down. I find myself doing it frequently these days." When he was trying to be charming, Mr. Malfoy smiled just like Draco.

She sat. "I was glad to hear of your release, Mr. Malfoy."

"I'd imagine I was infinitely gladder. But I appreciate the sentiment. Your father did much to arrange it."

"Out of love," she said.

"And loyalty. I do not as a rule, trust, Miss Parkinson. But I trust your father more than any man. Cheswick, as I hope I have made clear over the years, is my most valued friend and associate."

She had never been comfortable responding to compliments. "You are being polite."

"I am not." There was a vaguely uncomfortable pause. Mr. Malfoy stared at her intensely. "I was inordinately pleased when I heard that Draco was taking an interest in you. I would hope that someday the two of you would make the bonds between our families somewhat more permanent." 

Pansy couldn't help but smile. "That is as dependent on Draco's wishes as my own."

"And parental consent." Mr. Malfoy leaned forward, out of his wheelchair. "I will not lie to you and say that Cheswick and I haven't discussed this. But I haven't been quite so blatant in my response as I am being now, because I want you to season my gesture of goodwill with one of your own."

Pansy drank some brandy before replying. "What can I do for you?" She drew her finger around the rim of her glass and brought it to her lips.

He surprised her when he put his drink aside and leaned so far forward he almost left the wheelchair. "Watch Draco."

She didn't want to ask if that was all, but the question must have shown on her face, because he continued, "Draco has yet to learn patience. That, more than anything Hogwarts could teach him, is something that he could stand to learn. You, Miss Parkinson, have an overabundance of patience. I should hope that, over the next term, you'd place your gift at Draco's disposal." 

"And that's the favor?"

Mr. Malfoy smiled. 

"Do you think," Pansy said after a moment of consideration, "Draco would keep me so close if were not already entirely at his disposal?"

Mr. Malfoy leaned back into his wheelchair, still smiling.

She downed the brandy, and looked at him. He hadn't yet touched his drink. "You're wrong about Draco," she said, suddenly angry.

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"He's learning."

Mr. Malfoy started to laugh. "Maybe."

"What did he want?" Draco whispered over the soup, when both his mother and father had turned away to scold a house-elf for bringing it too cold.

"He asked me for sexual favors," Pansy said, taking a sip. "I said yes." Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy turned back to the table.

"He only likes blondes," Draco finally replied, later that night when she snuck into his room.

"I'm going to charm my hair," she whispered, stepping out of her slip.

He surveyed her from his bed. "I only like brunettes."

She climbed in beside him. "Would you still want me if I was blonde?"

"You'd look too much like me. I might as well wank off."

---- 

After about an hour of listening to Harry pretend to sleep, Ron gave up and went downstairs to the breakfast table. His mother stood by the stove, flipping bacon with calm wand strokes. 

"You're awake early," she said, directing the latest batch of bacon onto the already-heaping platter.

So was she, but the reason for that was obvious, and rhymed with "scary," which certainly described her degree of devotion to her practically-adopted son. Whenever Harry stayed at the Burrow, she made certain to attend to his every need, real or imagined. Ron doubted that it would do him any good to mention that Harry didn't like bacon.

"I woke up a while ago and couldn't fall back asleep," Ron said.

"Did Harry wake you up?"

For someone who was utterly convinced that Harry loved bacon, his mother could be incredibly observant at times. "Harry?"

"I heard him walking around upstairs a couple of hours ago." She added more bacon to the pan. It sizzled greasy-hot.

"How do you know it was him?"

"Harry is the only person I know who can manage to step on every single squeaky board in this house. For all his flying skills, that boy is amazingly clumsy."

Ron considered for a moment and realized that it was true. Even Hermione knew which boards to avoid, although he suspected that with her it was more a matter of memorization than instinct. Harry, however, had footfalls recognizable from the ground floor when he was all the way up in the attic.

"True enough," Ron said. "What do you think he was doing, getting a glass of water or something?" 

"Unless getting a glass of water means pacing along the second-story hallway for an hour and a half, I doubt it," his mother said. "Do you want some bacon?"

Ron selected a piece and began to crunch on it.

"Harry's wandering at night, all the time. Nearly every night this summer I've heard him. Haven't you?"

"Sometimes."

"You have to have heard him. He walks so loudly I'm amazed he doesn't wake the whole house. Sometimes he's up half the night. It's a wonder the boy's still alive, what with how little he sleeps."

"Harry seems fine." This was a lie and they both knew it, but he had to say it.

"During the day, yes. But at night, I—"

"Good morning, everyone!" Ginny bounced into the kitchen, far too cheerful for this hour. "How are you, Mum?"

"Fine," his mother said, but her eyes never left Ron. _I'm worried about Harry,_ they said. _I want to help him but I don't know how._

Ron nodded in reply. None of what his mother had said was news to him.

He had been awake since well before sunrise and Harry was the reason he'd been up so early. Ron had been dreaming about riding the elevator in the Ministry of Magic up to Dad's office, only in the dream, it was scarily quiet. He was alone in the elevator. Only a few straggling memos clustered around the lamp at the top of the lift, flapping at each other angrily in an effort to get closer to the light. When the elevator finally ground to a halt, Ron reached forward to open the door, but at that instant, the bedroom door creaked open, and Ron nearly fell through the bed. That was how he felt when he was surprised awake—like he was tumbling through a crevasse of pillows and bedclothes.

As Harry stumbled into the room, Ron nearly lashed out at him, but hesitated. Even in the gray pre-dawn darkness, Harry's shape was stooped, shoulders down and weary. Five o'clock would do that to a person, but early mornings typically agreed with Harry, most likely because that was the time of day when the Dursleys were least likely to bother him.

Ron knew what this was. Harry had always been prone to sleepwalking. When they'd first come to Hogwarts, Ron assumed that it was the novelty of the place. Later, once Harry had grown accustomed to Hogwarts, the walks had only increased in frequency, especially before Quidditch games, after fights with Malfoy, and whenever Harry was under a lot of pressure or had a lot on his mind. Ron figured sleepwalking was Harry's way of calming himself down, of diffusing all that extra magic that made him want to break things. That was how Ron dealt with stress, breaking things, but when he suggested it to Harry, Harry just laughed and said, "No, thanks." Ron wasn't sure how it was possible that Harry hadn't exploded yet. Maybe the explosion was just biding its time.

"Did you see the _Prophet_ yet?" Harry said through a yawn as he stumbled down the stairs into the kitchen. There were circles under his eyes. Ron exchanged a glance with his mother.

"No, dear," his mother said, smiling so quickly Ron would have never picked up on her worry, had he not been here earlier. He wondered if she ever acted that way with him. "I made bacon."

Harry looked through the food as if he didn't really see it. He spread the paper out on top of his plate.

Mrs. Weasley frowned. 

"Lucius Malfoy is speaking in Diagon Alley today." Harry looked straight at Mrs. Weasley. "I want to go."

Her lips tightened into a thin line. "Absolutely not."

Harry rounded on her. "Why?"

"Why?" She blinked at him. "Never mind why. Have some bacon."

Harry remained standing, hands holding the _Prophet_ down on the table.

"I'd like to go, too, Mum," Ginny piped up.

"Neither of you are going anywhere." Mrs. Weasley spun around, heading back to the stove. "You don't really want to hear anything Lucius Malfoy has to say."

"Yes, I do," Harry cut in quickly.

"If we don't hear him, how will we know what he's planning?" Ginny piggybacked.

"You can read it in the _Prophet."_

Harry rolled his eyes. "And I'm sure the _Prophet_ will give us an accurate version of events."

"Well, it's as good as you're going to get. You can't go out on your own, Harry," Mrs. Weasley said, stirring furiously something on the stove. "It's too dangerous."

"Go with me."

"I refuse to listen to anything that man has to say."

"I'll go," Ginny volunteered.

"You will not," Mrs. Weasley snapped. "You're too young."

"I'll go," Ron cut in before Ginny could protest. "We should, Harry's right. Hermione will come with us. She'll make sure we don't do anything stupid."

"No," Mrs. Weasley said. "It's not that I don't trust you or Harry. It's everybody else. You never know who might be out there—"

"And if we don't go, we'll never know who we're up against!" Harry yelled. "You can't protect me forever."

Mrs. Weasley stared at him. The silence in the room was only broken by the popping grease. "Harry, I said no."

"Sirius would have let me go."

She flinched as if he had slapped her. "Sirius was not your father, Harry."

"You're not one of my parents, either."

Her lips tightened. She turned away quickly to face the stove.

At her reaction, Harry's face tensed. He stepped towards her. "Mrs. Weasley?"

"You can go, Harry," she said. "And Ron, and Hermione, if she wants. But not you, Ginny, you are too young. Come back immediately after the speech."

Harry stared at her. He didn't look happy at all. "Mrs. Weasley—"

She turned, wiping her eyes. "Eat your bacon."

---- 

The announcement in the _Daily Prophet_ hadn't mentioned where the speech would take place, but it needn't have: as soon as the street widened out around the first turn, Hermione could see the gathered crowd. It spilled out of Diagon Alley's main plaza, which must be where Lucius Malfoy was speaking. It covered the street to a few blocks out. Hermione paused; surely the public broadcast system would be loud enough that she could hear what Malfoy had to say from this far away.

Harry and Ron, however, began to push through the outskirts of the crowd. "I want to see his eyes," Ron said. "I want to watch the slimy bastard's face." 

A quick glance at Harry proved that he agreed with Ron. 

They began to sidestep and shove their way through the crowd. Even Hermione abandoned the "excuse me's" after a large man who bore a distinct resemblance to Harry's Uncle Vernon trod on her foot so heavily she squealed.

Once they got past Flourish and Blotts, the street widened slightly. One more twist of the road and Gringotts loomed overhead. Overshadowed by the bank's marble dome, the platform in front of it seemed almost an afterthought. Just then a tall, weedy man with a drooping moustache stepped forward and tested the Amplifying Charms, which were loud enough that Hermione, Harry, and Ron could have heard them from the entrance to Diagon Alley. She wouldn't have been surprised if a good part of Muggle London heard the weedy man's "Check, 1-2-3, check." The sound alone blew her hair back from her face. The crowd whispered excitedly, as if they were at a concert that was about to begin.

A door on the Knockturn Alley side of Gringotts opened and an entourage of Aurors cleared the way to the stage, followed by Cornelius Fudge, an enormous woman who had to be his wife, and the Malfoys. Lucius Malfoy, Hermione was flabbergasted to see, was in a wheelchair. Sirius had been in Azkaban over a decade and his legs had been healthy enough to keep him on the run for over a year.

Draco was at the handles, pushing his father up onto the stage. He wore a disgustingly smug smile that the _Prophet_ was sure to term "cherubic." Two of the Aurors followed the Fudges and the Malfoys onto the stage; the rest held back the crowd. Hermione recognized Tonks among them. The bright purple hair made it rather easy. She could have sworn Tonks looked up and winked at her.

The tall man with the wilting moustache returned to the podium. "Please join me," he said, "in welcoming Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge." The crowd applauded politely. Harry and Ron's hands remained resolutely by their sides, as did Hermione's own.

The mustached man slid into the background as Fudge stepped up to the podium. He was wearing an absolutely hideous lime green shirt under his black robes. His wife had on a citrus-print dress to match. Fudge placed his hands on the podium and cleared his throat. "Thank you, Cheswick." Fudge nodded toward the mustached man. "And an even bigger thanks to all of you for joining me here today on the behalf of Mr. Lucius Malfoy, a model citizen—" Someone near the podium let out a wolf-whistle and the crowd started to cheer. Fudge reddened and Malfoy waved appreciatively from his wheelchair. "A model citizen," Fudge began again, shouting over the cheers, "and good friend who was greatly wronged by recent events."

The crowd started to boo and someone near the front shouted, "Impeach Fudge!" but they all quieted when a few Aurors pulled out their wands and moved into the audience, looking for the discontents. Hermione frowned.

"Because of his awful mistreatment," Fudge said, after a severe look at the crowd, "I would not blame Lucius if he were to become angry and resentful, but he stands tall, a more forgiving human being than any man I have ever known—"

Hermione snickered. Fudge continued, blithely unaware of the irony of attributing the adjective "tall" to a wheelchair-bound man.

"He is a man who has proven that completeness of spirit can overcome any obstacle, bridge any gap, and repair any misunderstanding. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce to you, Lucius Malfoy." He began to clap enthusiastically, continuing to applaud along with the crowd as he stepped back from the podium and Lucius Malfoy wheeled forward.

Malfoy wheeled to the left side of the podium, stopped, and said, "I could have this podium reduced to my current stature." He wheeled in front of the podium. "But I won't. I want you, the wizarding public, to see what I have become as a result of my time spent in Azkaban. Not an idiot, not insane, but a cripple. I am a paraplegic because of the time I spent there. However, this is not a speech against the conditions in Azkaban or any other wizarding prison. It is a speech against the misunderstanding that led me to be unduly incarcerated. That misunderstanding was caused by bad people, bad timing, and, most importantly, evil."

He was laying it on a little thick, even for a Malfoy. Draco Malfoy's flair for the dramatic was obviously an inherited trait.

"Evil exists in our world," Malfoy said. "There is no denying that. For hundreds of years, Muggles burned innocent witches and wizards at the stake. Even today, Muggles are killing their own kind. In Bosnia, Muggles are killing Muggles because of their ignorance and prejudice. Innocent people around the world are dying because of evil.

"I, too, nearly died as a result of evil. I certainly would have died in Azkaban, had justice not been served. I am particularly familiar with this plight. I understand the danger that evil poses to us all, and I have a strong personal interest in working towards a world in which people do not have to fear evil, in which people do not die because of evil in the world.

"As my great-grandfather Pecunius Malfoy once said, 'With great power comes great responsibility.' Until recently, I did not fully comprehend the magnitude of my responsibility towards the world. Now I understand that I not only should but, indeed, _must_ use the resources at my disposal to work towards a remedy for the evil in the world.

"Thus, with the full support of Minister Fudge, I would like to unveil my plans for a new organization that will work towards this goal. It will help to increase awareness of the danger that we face because of evil, combat the ignorance that allows evil to spread unchecked, and attack the roots of evil so that it will never again be fostered in our world. Ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to share with you in the creation of the Society for the Prevention of Evil in the World."

The crowd burst into applause. The Society for the Prevention of Evil in the World… Hermione counted letters. Oh, he hadn't…

A lighted logo appeared above the stage, depicting a blue and green globe with the letters S.P.E.W. arching over it in red.

S.P.E.W. Society for the Prevention of Evil in the World. He had.

The same thought seemed to have occurred to Harry. "SPEW?" he said.

"S.P.E.W.," Hermione corrected automatically. Draco Malfoy must have done it. He must have told his father about S.P.E.W.—she could just see him doing that, and of course they would find a way to use it; they probably created the organization just so that they could use the name. All they wanted was a fake organization, anyway, something to make Lucius Malfoy look legitimate, give him a front that wasn't "Dark Arts Practitioner And Generally Bad Man," and they'd taken her name and—

Hermione suddenly realized that she'd been saying all of this aloud, and that Ron was trying not to laugh at her. "It's not funny," she said shortly. "How can you think that any of this is funny?"

"I don't—it's not," Ron smothered a laugh, "that I think the situation's funny. It's just—Hermione, don't you think maybe you're giving Malfoy a little too much credit?"

"Giving Malfoy a little too much credit?" she echoed. "Don't tell me you think this is random chance. There is just no way."

"It might be a bit too much of a coincidence," Ron said, "but honestly, Hermione, SPEW—I mean S.P.E.W.," he corrected himself hastily, "wasn't really that well-known."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well—it's just that Malfoy only knew about it because he goes out of his way to bother us. He's Malfoy. It's what he does. But even he doesn't go on about SPEW anymore." 

"So? That doesn't mean he doesn't remember it! What makes you think Malfoy wouldn't save something like that and bring it—"

"Will you two shut up already and listen to the speech?" Harry snapped. "You can argue about SPEW later. Hermione's SPEW, I mean. We need to listen to Malfoy's SPEW now." 

Hermione closed her mouth and turned towards the stage, still fuming.

"…with the help of the Aurors," Malfoy was saying, "we will hold Protection Against Terrible Evil Seminars"—P.A.T.E.S. Pâtés. Someone in Malfoy's publicity department had apparently enjoyed himself way too much when he invented the names of these things. Or rather, when he stole them. S.P.E.W.? Random chance? Not likely.—"during which wizards and witches can become educated about the evil we all face during our lives. Without education, we cannot overcome evil.

"And we must overcome evil. Evil in this world must not be tolerated any longer. Like so many of us, I used to believe that the evil in the world was not my problem. When it did become my problem, I had to make a choice: I could choose to lie down and die in Azkaban, or I could believe in the power of good and believe that the good in the world will triumph.

"I choose to believe that we can overcome the evil in the world. I am a paraplegic because of my time spent in Azkaban, but I am not going to waste the rest of my life in bitterness because of the misunderstanding that sent me there. I am not going to harbor resentment towards the people who misinterpreted certain events, or towards the authorities who believed this interpretation. I am, however, going to do all in my power to ensure that such misunderstandings never occur again."

His hands dropped to the front of his robes. They were buttoned all the way down to his shoes. Unusual, and she should have noticed it before. He began to undo the buttons.

"Until such misunderstandings no longer exist in the world, however"—this was apparently a cue for Narcissa Malfoy to step forward, as she did—"we must help each other where we can." Narcissa knelt and began to unbutton the robes near Lucius's feet, where he could not reach. She stood and placed a hand on his shoulder. He continued to unbutton his robes. "We must support each other in the daily struggle of our lives." Draco Malfoy stepped forward and knelt at his father's right side. Lucius began to wiggle out of his wheelchair. He gripped Draco's shoulder with both hands and pulled himself up, straining heavily. It took him three tries to manage it. As he moved up, Hermione saw a glint of metal beneath the now-open robes. As soon as he was fully standing, most of his weight resting on Draco's shoulder, if the look on Draco's face was any indication, Narcissa knelt quickly in front of Lucius and fiddled with something beneath his robes.

"That looks so wrong," Ron muttered. Hermione blanched in agreement. 

Narcissa stood up to Lucius's left. Lucius's fingers relaxed on Draco's shoulders and Draco stood up as well. Lucius was standing of his own accord.

"This is not magic," Lucius said. "I am not miraculously healed. I am still a paraplegic. But with great effort and willpower, I can overcome—we can overcome—the evil in this world." His voice gradually grew louder. "Through solidarity of all mankind and faith in each other, we can ensure that evil will not succeed in this world." He was nearly shouting now. He shrugged out of his robes. They fell onto the wheelchair behind him, and Hermione could see the shiny metal leg braces he wore over his pants. He threw his hands into the air. "Good will prevail!" 

The crowd roared. A beefy man next to Hermione yelled, "Yes it will!" as his wife burst into tears of joy. "We love Lucius! We love Lucius!" two teenaged girls were chanting a few people in front of them. The taller one started to unbutton her robes.

Lucius Malfoy was alternating between waving and throwing his fists into the air. Every time his hands went up the crowd roared. Draco and Narcissa waved steadily the whole time. A woman to Ron's right held her newborn baby in the air and screamed, "Thank you for making the world safe for my baby! Lucius Malfoy saved my baby!"

"You have got to be kidding me," Hermione said.

"She's a plant," Ron said decisively.

Malfoy would do that.

"Don't you agree, Harry? She's a plant," Ron said. Harry didn't reply. Ron turned to his side. "Harry?" But Harry wasn't there. "Where's Harry?"

"I don't know, I thought he was right next to you!"

"You don't need to get all defensive about—oh shit."

Hermione turned around just in time to see a dark head fighting his way through the crowd clustered around the stage. "Oh no," she said, "he's trying to get to Malfoy!"

"Go get him, Harry!"

"No, Ron! Don't go get him, Harry! What's he thinking?" She shoved the people in front of her out of the way. Ron followed close behind her, shouting vague encouragement at Harry; she couldn't hear him over the crowd. She saw Harry dive onto the stage—a woman beside her screamed, "Look, Earl! Even Harry Potter loves SPEW!"—_they're already calling it SPEW_; the thought seemed to be coming from far away, through a water or a tunnel—she couldn't see, the people in front of her were too tall; she shoved them aside—Harry was on the stage—the people were in front of her again—a woman screamed, maybe Narcissa Malfoy—cameras flashed wildly—Harry's voice exploded over the crowd: "Lucius Malfoy is lying! He's a fraud! SPEW's a fake! Don't believe anything he says, he's a Death—" Harry's voice stopped—she could see again, just as Draco Malfoy grabbed him by the shoulders—he was trying to pull Harry away from the podium, but Harry wasn't budging—she pushed a tall boy out of her way, only to realize it was Ron—Malfoy was punching Harry—one of the cameras exploded—Harry grabbed Malfoy's shoulders and pulled him down, she couldn't see—"That's right, Harry, show that little shit!" Ron yelled—they were almost at the stage now, but Aurors were on the stage, pulling someone up—Harry reappeared, then Malfoy, both snarling, but she couldn't hear what they were saying—Harry had a bloody nose, Aurors had them both by the shoulders—it was over.

Hermione couldn't force herself any closer to the stage: the Aurors were holding the crowd back, and the people in front of her simply wouldn't budge. It didn't matter that it wasn't their fault that they were packed so tight that Hermione couldn't squeeze through. Why wouldn't they move? She wanted to punch something, and almost did start whacking the back of the person in front of her, but then arms wrapped around her from behind—Ron's—and he said, "Calm down, Hermione."

She stared. Where had his calm been a few minutes ago when he'd been screaming, "Go get him, Harry"?

He must have sensed her incredulity, because he said, "There's nothing we can do about Harry right now, Hermione. I think the Aurors have it under control." 

And maybe they did, but it was strange to be hearing reason coming from Ron's mouth. It was so unfamiliar that she let down her guard in surprise and Ron's arms pressed tighter around her at the slackening of tension.

"Harry'll be okay," he said. Again, "Harry'll be okay."

"Where are they taking him?" The Aurors were escorting Draco Malfoy and Harry from the stage, under heavy guard. They disappeared into the doorway from which the Malfoys and the Fudges had come.

"To the Ministry, probably. Dad says they have a few cells by the Auror offices. We should get someone from the Order to go post his bail." 

Hermione was about to ask about the jail, but just then, a woman screamed. "What's that, Elaine?" a boy asked his older sister.

Elaine didn't answer, but they could all see for themselves. Orange flames rose high from the middle of the press pit, sending the reporters scattering, albeit just far enough away to escape danger. Cameras flashed wildly from an angle that, Hermione was sure, would give them a view of the blaze with the stage in the background.

"No pictures!" someone screamed. "A camera explosion started it!" But then the voice was swept away in the call to put out the fire. A few people tried _"Disincindio,"_ but it wouldn't work. The flames only flew higher.

_It's a non-magical fire,_ Hermione thought and yelled, but no one heard her. The woman beside her even said, "What kind of charm makes flames do that?"

"It's a non-magical fire," Hermione yelled again, but someone seemed to have realized that now, and there were emergency response wizards dousing the flames with water. 

"Pity," Ron said, reaching into his pocket to show Hermione some of the Floo Powder his Mum had given them to get back to Grimmauld Place. "We could have used that to go home." 

"What? Are you crazy? It's not on the Floo Network, Ron. There's no telling where an unregistered fire like that would send us."

"I was just kidding," Ron said. "We'll go to the safe, registered fireplace at the Leaky Cauldron."

"Good," Hermione said firmly.

They both finally realized that his arms were still around her. She detached herself quickly and followed him through the crowd to the Leaky Cauldron.

----

When the Aurors had manhandled them into separate cells, locked the doors, and left them alone, Malfoy turned to Harry and hissed:

"I am going to kill you, Potter. I am going to punch your stupid face until you bleed out of your eyeholes and then I'll knife you in the gut and grind that dumb scar into the ground."

"I am going to bash out your brains with a fork," Harry replied.

Draco pressed his face to the bars. "Why a fork?"

"Because I'll want to have cake and tea afterwards."

Draco flipped him the finger. "I broke your nose," he said, in the self-satisfied manner of high-achievers.

Harry touched it gingerly. "I gave you a black eye," he responded.

"If you don't charm it soon, it will heal crooked."

"Too bad when the swelling goes down, it will still be your face." 

Draco sat Indian-style on the floor. "That was childish, Potter."

Harry stuck his head against the bars. "You just aren't fast enough to come up with a good insult."

"I know you are, but what am I?" Malfoy sneered in a passable imitation of Harry's Midlands accent.

"Stupid," Harry muttered.

"You are nothing," Malfoy hissed, pressing his face against the bars again. "And you're dead."

Harry started at him. "Dead bleeding out of my eyeholes?" He turned and sat down facing the wall.

Malfoy flipped him the finger again, propped himself up under the sink and began to play pinochle with half a cover somebody had torn off a Gideon's Bible. "I fuck Pansy every night and sometimes on Thursdays."

Harry ignored him and began to count the number of stones in the ceiling. 

"I have two bells free on Thursdays, and Pansy skips Divinitation when she feels like it. She comes to my room and comes in my room and—"

"That's nice, Malfoy," Harry said. "But you're interrupting my count of the ceiling tiles. Why don't you finish the conversation with someone who cares, like the wall?"

Malfoy scowled and actually fell silent. "Then," he continued, apparently incapable of self-restraint, "I take off all her clothes and fuck her against the wall."

Harry laid down on his back to get a better view of the ceiling.

"Sometimes Weasley joins in."

"I'm fairly sure Ginny has better taste than that," Harry mused.

"Ron screams like a girl when he—"

"That's enough out of you, Malfoy." 

"—gets punched in the face, Potter. What did you think I was going to say?" Malfoy flashed a toothy smile. Harry wondered if Lockhart and Malfoy had ever practiced their grins together.

"You scream like a girl when you break a nail," Harry said.

"I still broke your nose," Malfoy replied. "You're going to look like a pug when it heals."

"That's nice." Harry continued to count the ceiling tiles.

----

Attaching the badge reading _Narcissa Malfoy—Concerned Parent,_ Draco's mother cut through the front lobby of the Ministry of Magic. Pansy had to run to catch up, trying to stick her own _Pansy Parkinson—Concerned Girlfriend_ pin to her cardigan at the same time. She hoped the stickpin wouldn't make a hole in the cashmere. Draping herself all over the reception desk, Mrs. Malfoy announced, "I am here about my son." She tossed her cloak on top of the counter and placed her wand on the counter for identification.

The wizard behind the desk looked up from his _Quibbler_ crossword, blinking at them from behind round lenses. "Seventy-eight down, permanently horizontal, four letters, second one E."

"Dead." Mrs. Malfoy handed her wand to him. "Inspect me, please." He wrote in the answer, stuck his quill behind his ear, and took her wand with the air of one suffering a gross imposition. Putting it behind his other ear for safekeeping, he stuck his head below the countertop and began to rummage through his desk.

"Do you have a quill?" Mrs. Malfoy whispered to Pansy.

Pansy reached down and pulled one out of the jar sitting on the receptionist wizard's desk. "Yes."

Taking it, Mrs. Malfoy grabbed the wizard's _Quibbler_ crossword and calmly began filling in wrong answers. There was a large crash and a muffled expletive from behind the desk. Mrs. Malfoy rolled her eyes at Pansy. "Incompetent Mudbloods," she whispered.

She put the _Quibbler_ back just as the receptionist's head popped up from under his desk. He slammed a small golden scale down on the countertop, pulled Mrs. Malfoy's wand out from behind his ear and dropped it onto the scale. It promptly emitted a shower of silver and green sparks. The receptionist fiddled with a few dials on the scale and the wand let loose a few weak coughs of fragrant purple smoke. Squinting through his glasses, he read, "Narcissa Malfoy?" off the scale.

"It's on my badge, too," Mrs. Malfoy said, pointing to her chest. She took her wand off the scale. "Is that sufficient?"

The receptionist pointed his wand over his shoulder. _"Accio,"_ he said, without looking. A door flew open. The room behind was filled wall-to-wall with file cabinets. A drawer shot open, spilling its contents all across the floor, but one file marked "M" zoomed above the rest, flying through the hall and landing on the receptionist's desk. Papers flew everywhere. "Please give me your height, birth date, current residence, and criminal history so I can cross-check and confirm everything." Mrs. Malfoy made an annoyed noise. "It's extra security," he informed her. "Ever since You-Know-Who's return, the Ministry has been on Code Purple status."

"Well that explains everything," Mrs. Malfoy said dryly. "5'8", April tenth—" 

"Wait a moment," the receptionist snapped. He gestured angrily to the folder. "I have to find the right spot." He flipped it open. Mrs. Malfoy's expression stiffened as he leafed through the papers one by one. "All right then," he said, stopping at one with "Ma" labeled at the top. "Carry on." 

"5'8", April tenth, Malfoy Manor, Monkton Farleigh, Wiltshire—"

"England, the world, the Universe," the receptionist said, following along in the file.

Mrs. Malfoy made a face. "Did you make that up yourself?"

He stared blankly at her.

She frowned at him and cleared her throat. "I have been arraigned three times on charges of capital murder, conspiracy with intent to depose the Ministry, and underage Apparition. I was acquitted on all but the latter, for which I was charged a fine of fifteen Galleons."

The receptionist slammed the file shut. "That all seems to be in order. Now what can I do for you?"

"I am here about my son."

The receptionist looked at her blankly. "Your son?"

"Draco Malfoy. He was picked up earlier this afternoon."

The receptionist flipped through the "M" file. "It says here he was taken into custody at 15:32 GMT—must have been that blond they dragged in about half an hour ago, screaming his head off."

Mrs. Malfoy smiled. "That would be Draco."

"He's been charged with aggravated but excessive brawling in a public forum and disruption of the peace," the wizard read from the "M" file. "That's at least three days in jail."

"There must be a mistake." Mrs. Malfoy smiled benignly at the receptionist. "Draco isn't being charged with anything."

The receptionist pointed at his file. "But it says right here—"

_Thump._ The receptionist looked up, startled. Mrs. Malfoy had dropped a newly papered thirty-Galleon roll on his desk. "Draco's bail money," she said sweetly.

"But bail is only fifteen Galleons," he said.

Mrs. Malfoy smiled. "I appreciate your understanding in this delicate manner, and our family lawyer will be sure to keep in mind that it is Ministry policy under Code Purple to take into custody all participants in an incident even if they are innocent victims of an unprovoked attack."

The receptionist blinked. "Are you bribing me?"

Mrs. Malfoy looked shocked. "For what? You're only doing your job." She dropped another roll on the desk. "By the way," Mrs. Malfoy leaned forward so there was no way anyone other than the receptionist and Pansy could have heard her, "the answer to 73 down is yes."

The receptionist actually looked at his crossword. Mrs. Malfoy exchanged a glance with Pansy. "I know, from personal experience, how utterly damning a criminal record can be. I've had so much trouble getting Apparition licenses. I really appreciate the fact that Draco is going to be cleared of any unjust charges—oh dear," she leaned over the desk, fumbling with and dropping a bag of Galleons, "I seem to have lost my purse. Would you pick it up for me?"

The receptionist took the slip of paper listing the charges against Draco from the file. He handed it to Mrs. Malfoy. "Here you go, ma'am."

She gave him a genuine smile.

The receptionist escorted them down two floors to the Auror offices to unlock Draco. He was sitting in the front corner of a cell that stank of blood and piss, head pushed against the bars. His hair was matted with blood, there was a bruise on his left cheek and his collar was ripped. He didn't look at all surprised to see them. When Mrs. Malfoy bent down to coo over Draco, Pansy's gaze was drawn across the hall to the cell where Potter was locked.

He was leaning against the far wall of the cell, so far back he was cast in a strange gray mixture of light and shadow. The only color in the room was the blood drying under his crooked nose. Pansy hoped Draco had broken it.

When they went out through the Ministry lobby, Pansy noticed Professor Lupin walking toward the reception desk down the opposite side. Mrs. Malfoy's eyes narrowed. "He's coming for Potter."

"Dirty werewolf," Draco said.

Almost at the desk, Lupin paused. He turned around and looked back at them. Draco bared his teeth.

"What did Potter say to you?" Pansy asked Draco when they were finally alone in his room at the Manor. She dipped a cloth into the steaming bowl of water the house elves had set up and wiped at his head.

He drew a sharp breath. "I didn't pay attention."

"I mean in the jail."

"Nothing," Draco said, pressing her hand into his head. "We have nothing to talk about."

Just then a house-elf opened the door with an armful of clean towels. 

----

"An arraignment?" Mrs. Weasley rumbled. "He's having an arraignment?"

"Molly, please," Professor Lupin said, leaning against the mantelpiece. "He got through it fine last year."

"Yes, last year," Mrs. Weasley fumed, glaring at Harry. "This is becoming quite a trend." 

Harry felt his face grow hot. "You should have heard what Malfoy was saying. I couldn't just stand there—"

"You very well should have!" Mrs. Weasley exploded.

"Mum, you weren't there," Ron yelled back. "Harry should have punched him harder!"

Mrs. Weasley's mouth was set in a tight line. "Ronald, Hermione, go to your rooms."

Ron's jaw dropped. "But Mum—"

"I want to speak to Harry alone." 

Lupin walked away from the fireplace and opened the door out to the hallway. Seeing the Professor so calmly support his mother seemed to drain the fight out of Ron. Casting an apologetic glance at Harry, he filed out with a white-faced Hermione in tow.

Lupin shut the door, and sat down in a chair near the window. There was a deathly sort of silence. Mrs. Weasley's face turned progressively more purple.

Harry didn't feel like talking. He figured he'd just let her yell at him and then try to forget all about the arraignment until the day of. He'd feel most comfortable if it was tomorrow, instead of a whole five days away. That way he could just fumble through the next twenty-four hours and at the end he'd know one way or another what would happen—if he'd be expelled or sent to Azkaban or any of the other horrible things Malfoy would invariably insist upon.

"I can't believe that you would be so absolutely stupid, Harry," Mrs. Weasley finally began, her voice deadly quiet. Intellectually, he understood her point. Running up onto the stage and beating the hell out of Draco Malfoy may not have been the best course of action. It had seemed like the only thing to do at the time. And really, he wasn't sorry at all. He would do it again. It was typical of the Ministry to believe Malfoy's turnaround, but that the public would accept the true version of Voldemort's return and then swallow Lucius Malfoy's claim that he'd been framed a month later was horrifying.

"I don't think stupid's quite the word, Molly," Lupin said. "I think it's more along the lines of, Congratulations, Harry, you could not have done more to guarantee Lucius Malfoy's success if you had personally endorsed him."

"What do you mean by that?" he demanded, sending his chair skittering backward. He stood up too fast and blood pounded through his temples. "All I did was tell the truth. I had to do it. People were listening to Malfoy. A girl was taking off her robes. People were screaming his name and bursting into tears and they all believed him."

"I've told you before, Harry," Lupin interrupted. "People hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe."

"But it's not the truth. Why can't we make them see that?"

"You could, Harry, but Imperius isn't the kind of thing you want to be using, is it?" Lupin's voice was quiet.

"We're just trying to tell you that you need to consider the consequences of your actions," Mrs. Weasley said.

"The consequences?" Harry was suddenly angry again.

"Hold on, Harry. Before you get mad at us, listen to what we have to say. Molly is exactly right. You act on impulse, and that is one of your greatest strengths, but it can also cause a lot of problems."

"You just need to learn to control your impulses, is all, dear," Mrs. Weasley said. "You have to admit you have a bit of a history of being rash." 

"I can control my impulses," Harry bristled.

"No, you can't," Mrs. Weasley said. "If you could, you wouldn't have gotten in a fight with Lucius Malfoy's son in front of dozens of flashing cameras. In fact, you wouldn't have been on stage at all."

"I had to do something!" Harry argued. "No one else was doing anything to stop Malfoy."

"And that's exactly what they should have been doing! But you—"

"Molly," Lupin held up a hand, and she fell silent. "May I say something here?" She nodded. "We're not doing nothing to stop Lucius Malfoy. It's just difficult. We can't publicly denounce him and his organization because he has the Ministry behind him. They are very firmly our allies now that they have admitted that Voldemort has returned. We can't alienate the Ministry as soon as we gain their support. Fudge's enthusiasm for Malfoy and SPEW guarantees that denouncing Malfoy would equate to denouncing the whole Ministry." 

Harry couldn't suppress the sarcasm. "So what are you doing, then? Planning? Gathering intelligence?"

"The Order of the Phoenix is taking what appropriate measures we can at this time to ensure that Malfoy remains a manageable threat," Lupin said.

"You sound like a bloody press release."

"Harry! Language!" Mrs. Weasley snapped.

"Sorry." He wasn't. 

"That's another thing, the press. Harry, the Ministry has the _Daily Prophet_ in its back pocket and Malfoy has just a bit of clout around the Ministry these days. With all those cameras going off, I'd say they have the entire fight documented and you can bet that the picture that runs on the front page tomorrow—"

"The front page?"

"SPEW was big enough to warrant a front page spread all by itself, Harry, before your fight ever came into the picture. But the picture they'll be printing tomorrow won't be of Draco Malfoy throwing the first punch, you can be sure. It will be of you decking the kid, with a crazy expression on your face."

"Remus," Mrs. Weasley said, "That's enough. Don't upset him."

Lupin looked at Mrs. Weasley. "I'm not going to lie. Malfoy's PR people will spin this so he and Draco look like the victims and Harry the deranged teenager the Prophet's been saying he is all along." 

Harry shook his head. "I couldn't let him stand there." 

At that moment, a dignified-looking eagle owl exploded out of the fireplace. Mrs. Weasley screamed. It dropped a letter in Harry's lap, gave a disdainful little hoot and shot back up the chimney and into the night. _To Mr. H. Potter,_ the parchment read in expensive-looking black script. There was no return address.

"Who's it from?" Mrs. Weasley asked, extending her hand for the letter. 

Harry slit it open himself with his thumb and unfolded it. 

_August 24th, 1996_

Dear Mr. Potter,

As Malfoy family solicitor and managing partner of Parkinson, Avery, and Bloom I am very pleased to inform you that I, at the discretion of the Malfoy family, have spoken with the proper authorities and that there will be no arraignment to discuss your conduct this afternoon as previously scheduled for August 29th at 11:30 am.

The short and skinny of it is that due to the overwhelming emotional damage done to young Draco, which would only be compounded further by the insatiable media frenzy of a trial, the Malfoy family has no desire to press changes. They are quite firmly convinced that shock and trauma put you from proper control of your faculties and that, had you been fully aware, you would have been loath to behave as you did. They hope, as do I, that one day you will come to embrace the light and authority offered by SPEW.

The Ministry, however, was not so forgiving. Mr. Malfoy had to employ every connection at his disposal to convince them to look favorably upon your case. They have placed you on a six-month probation, any violation of which will be met with the most immediate and dire consequences.

You will be pleased to hear that Draco is recovering well and although he is too weak to move from his bed and address a letter himself, he sends his most forgiving regards. I think you should feel very fortunate, young man, for the courageous clemency shown to you by the Malfoy family. Lucius has given you a second chance. Make the most of it. Perhaps anger management classes are in order?

Cordially, 

Cheswick G. Parkinson, esq.  
Malfoy Family Solicitor   
Director of Legal Affairs, Society for the Prevention of Evil in the World  
Managing Partner, Parkinson, Avery, and Bloom 

Harry handed the letter to Lupin, who glanced at it and passed it on to Mrs. Weasley. He felt his face heat up. Reading that was like being faced with Umbridge all over again—condescending, rigid, and unquestionably wrong.

"It's genius," Lupin said. "Not pressing charges puts Malfoy absolutely in the position of the victim. He's milking the martyr role for all it's worth." 

"And I'm the lunatic aggressor that needs anger management classes."

Lupin exchanged a glance with Mrs. Weasley.

"I already know the answer is yes," Harry snapped.

"You have to be quiet, Harry," Lupin said after a small silence. "Or else you'll confirm Malfoy's slanders." 

Harry looked directly at him. "I'm not going to be quiet when someone needs to take a stand. _I'm_ not like that." 

Lupin's mouth tightened. "The Order cannot afford a loose cannon right now, Harry."

"I'd be more sympathetic to the Order's problems if I were in the Order."

"You're not of age." Mrs. Weasley looked at Lupin for support.

He held out his hands. "I've already expressed how I feel."

She rounded on him. "Remus, now is not the time."

Lupin looked at him. "Harry, would you excuse us for a minute?" As he closed the door, Harry could hear Lupin saying, "He's done as much as any of our members, Molly—"

He sat down by the wall to wait.

After a few minutes, the door opened and Lupin sat down on the floor beside Harry.

"I don't regret beating up Malfoy," Harry said.

"I hadn't noticed," Lupin replied with just a hint of sarcasm.

Harry half smiled at him but didn't say anything.

They sat like that for a few minutes until Mrs. Weasley came out of the parlor and told Harry she was going to heal his nose.

-----

**Notes:**

AURO QUAEQUE IANUA PANDITUR—"a golden key can open any door"

"With great power comes great responsibility." –Spiderman

_"I know you are, but what am I?" Malfoy sneered in a passable imitation of Harry's Midlands accent._ We asked a Britpick group a while back, and they said that Harry's accent is a "Midlands" accent, which Draco would be able to imitate because it's middle class and someone who's rich would conceivably make fun of it. 

Monkton Farleigh is a real place.


	3. Engine Trouble

**Title:** Diagon Burning (3/20)

**Author name:** 1 Eyed Jack

**Author email:** Drama

**Sub Category:** Action/Adventure

**Keywords:** Harry Draco Pansy engine trouble

**Rating:** R

**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP

**Summary:** Harry Potter is one of the few who remain skeptical when Lucius Malfoy emerges from Azkaban with a full pardon and a plan to start an evil-fighting organization. Exposing Malfoy as a fraud won't be easy amid lies, fights, and hidden agendas. One motorway accident, two definitions for SPEW, three levels of Ministry alert, and lots of four-nication. **_Chapter 3—Engine Trouble:_** Draco gets ass, Harry gets bad press, Hogwarts gets a new professor and there is no engine trouble. Ever.

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Some canon information in this chapter comes from the Lexicon.

**Author notes:** Special thanks to everyone that reviewed the last two chapters as well as Gena, Oli and co., and Viola for the betas. Naodrith and Alissa Raboin also looked over earlier versions of the fic.

**Diagon Burning**

Chapter 3:  
Engine Trouble

"Have you seen this, Minerva?" Severus Snape slapped the newspaper on top of her book.

McGonagall peered up at him over her glasses. "I'm sorry, Severus, what can I do for you?"

"The paper, Minerva, have you read it?"

McGonagall set Snape's _Prophet_ aside and returned to _Polyjuice and Confundus: Potions, Transfiguration, and the Art of Disguise_. Without looking up, she said, "Severus, please. It's five-thirty in the morning. Of course I haven't read it."

"But it's never too early for Transfiguration theory, is it?" Snape stared pointedly at her book.

She glanced at it. "It's never too early to help prepare my students for their NEWT level exams, on which the Transfiguration of disguise features prominently." 

"Much as I recognize the academic value of that endeavor, could you please," the word was costing Snape; McGonagall saw his jaw muscles tighten, "take a look at this article?"

McGonagall marked her place and eased the book shut. She picked up the paper. "Which page?"

Through clenched teeth: "The front page, Minerva."

"Oh, of course," she said, suppressing a grin. She flipped to the front cover and looked at the picture and its accompanying headline.

_SPEW Sabotage! Boy-Who-Lived: Out of Control?_ topped a half-page picture of Harry Potter punching Draco Malfoy in the face. The picture-Malfoy collapsed to the ground. He didn't even attempt to fight back. That was abnormal. If she knew anything at all about Potter and Malfoy, it was that their rivalry was hardly one-sided. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy stood at the far right edge of the picture, sporting identical expressions of shock.

"Why is Lucius Malfoy standing?" McGonagall said. "I thought Azkaban made him a paraplegic." 

Snape scowled in response to her questioning eyebrow. "He's still a paraplegic, he's just wearing leg braces. You'd notice them if you looked a little harder at the picture, or read the caption or the story."

McGonagall adjusted her reading glasses and peered at the picture. Just as Potter's fist connected with Malfoy's face, sunlight glinted off metal on Lucius Malfoy's trousers. "What do you know, he is wearing leg braces." She managed to keep the amusement from her voice.

"The article, Minerva." He was getting steadily more and more impatient. 

"Right, of course." She began to skim it.

_Yesterday's SPEW inauguration ended in disaster—a crazed Harry Potter leapt onto the stage—Lucius's son Draco tried to stop Potter with a peaceful tap on the shoulder, but Potter refused to leave the podium—"I was so shocked, " says eyewitness Norrick Travers, 47—" the next thing I knew he was on stage and poor young Malfoy was having his head beat against the podium"—neither Lucius Malfoy nor SPEW have decided to press charges—"The boy has always been unhinged," said Minister Fudge, when informed of Mr. Malfoy's decision not to prosecute—"Lucius's capacity for forgiveness is extraordinary. I cannot think of a better man to lead us in the fight against evil in the world."_

McGonagall put down the paper. "Seems like a typically unbiased piece of _Prophet_ reporting to me, Severus." She didn't even try to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

"A photograph is hardly subject to bias," Snape hissed as Potter's fist connected with Malfoy's jaw again.

"Somebody had to choose the photograph," she said. "And that someone is subject to bias. Nevertheless, the question still remains as to why you barged into my room at 5:30 in the morning to show me this."

"Potter is—"

She cut him off. "Just to preempt what I think you're going to say, no, I will not take points, assign detentions, or punish Potter in any other way. The school year has not yet begun."

"I was going to ask for expulsion."

She glared at him over the top of her glasses and didn't deign to answer.

"Minerva, Potter's disregard for the rules—"

"Is almost as great as Draco Malfoy's. No, I will not recommend expulsion for Potter in this instance, and I am confident he will not give me a reason to in the future."

"As Malfoy is a student in my house, I will of course register an official complaint with the Headmaster."

"Go ahead, but I'd suggest waiting until the sun has at least risen."

Snape glared. "Since Potter's arrogance is only dwarfed by his impatience, I don't see why we should force him to wait any longer than the morning mail for his expulsion notice."

"Your consideration is touching, Severus."

"I often find it had to keep my empathy in check," Snape said dryly.

McGonagall slid her glasses down her nose to look him straight in the eye. "Speaking of your empathy, I think it's good that you constantly give Potter the benefit of the doubt, or else people such as myself and the headmaster might misconstrue your expulsion request as an overreaction born out of personal dislike."

Snape glowered. 

"Nevertheless, I'm sure that the headmaster will review your recommendation with a fair and balanced eye." McGonagall smiled. "In the meantime, I'd suggest you prepare Potter a seat in your NEWT level Potions class."

Snape grit his teeth. "He will not pass that class."

"His OWL results suggest otherwise."

"I would remind you, Minerva, that all students wishing to enter a NEWT level class are eligible not only because of their test scores. Entry is also contingent upon faculty approval. I withhold my approval."

She leaned closer to him. "If you keep Potter out of your NEWT class, I will not allow Draco Malfoy into Advanced Transfiguration."

"He received full marks on his OWL."

"As did Potter in Potions," McGonagall said. "But as Malfoy's arrogance is only dwarfed by his impatience, I'm beginning to have serious doubts about his potential for success in my class."

Snape's face twisted into a frown as she used his own words against him. "Cute, Minerva."

She picked up _Polyjuice and Confundus_. "I would love to discuss this further over breakfast, Severus, but that doesn't begin for another two and a half hours."

He scowled. "I'm going to see Dumbledore."

"Best of luck," she said flippantly as he stomped out of her room. He had forgotten the _Prophet_. Down on her coverlet, Potter had begun to pull Malfoy's hair.

-

On the morning of September 1st, Fred and George set off a load of Dungbombs just for fun, Pigwidgeon nested in Hermione's hair, and Harry's Potions book went missing—although in Ron's opinion, there was nothing wrong with that. Hermione nearly had a fit and sent Fred and George on the hunt for it, under pain of death if they were unsuccessful.

It was, in all, a typical beginning to the school year for the Weasley household.

They managed to get to Kings Cross all in one piece, all except Fred, that is, but Ron was fairly certain that the detached left hand was intentional. It grabbed Mrs. Weasley's shoulder and made her scream right in the middle of the station, which did little to prevent Muggles from paying attention to them. At least Fred had the foresight to hide the flying hand behind a potted plant as Mrs. Weasley screeched.

Harry, Hermione, and Ginny slid through the barrier onto Platform Nine and Three-Quarters as Mrs. Weasley apologized loudly to the staring gaggle of Muggles. Ron grabbed the luggage his mother had dropped in the confusion and followed them.

"Hurry up and load the trunks," Hermione said. "We've got to get to the Prefects' Car. We're having a meeting on the way."

"Couldn't wait till they got to Hogwarts, could they?" Ron said, shoving his trunk in the baggage car, then doing the same with hers.

"Ron, don't be snippy," Hermione snipped, then sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just—under a little pressure right now."

"Before the school year's even started?" That just wasn't—no, this was Hermione. It was possible.

"Yes, Ron, and we're going to go to the Prefects' Car now, before we do anything else." 

The last thing Ron wanted to do was go off with Hermione to the front of the train and listen to that effing Hufflepuff Head Boy—Ron forgot his name, Ernst or Edwin or something equally stupid—blabber on for two hours about preventing pranks and policing the corridors. "Didn't you hear, Hermione? Only one representative per house is supposed to attend the meeting."

"No. I hadn't heard." Hermione crossed her arms, staring at him with something that looked alarmingly like suspicion.

"They want some of us to police disturbances here on the train," he said. "I got the letter telling me about it in the summer."

"The school usually sends me things by Muggle post because of my parents," Hermione said. "And I have been at Grimmauld Place since July. But there's never been a problem before."

Harry cottoned on. "Your letter must have gotten lost in the mail," he said.

"So it's all figured out," Ron said before Hermione could argue. "You go to the meeting, Hermione. I'll take the corridors."

"Make sure he does it, Harry." Hermione rounded on Ron. "I know how you skive off."

"Hermione!" Mrs. Weasley ran towards them as quickly as she could while dragging each of the twins by the ears. She dropped them to envelop Hermione in a hug and said, "Don't work yourself too hard this year"—already too late for that. Hermione promised she'd try not to, which elicited a snort from Ginny. Harry and Ron resisted similar commentary.

Mrs. Weasley moved onto Ginny. "Under no circumstances are you to leave school before you qualify as a witch, do you understand me? And no charming swamps and setting off fireworks in the corridors. That goes for Ron, too. And Harry, don't die." Finally she turned to Ron, "Just…be safe, all right?" But as she clutched him for a tight hug, she whispered low and fierce, "Watch him, Ron. Keep an eye on Harry."

Ron pulled away and nodded. His mother's eyes were sad.

As the train pulled out of Kings Cross, George, Fred, and Fred's severed hand waved in time. Mrs. Weasley didn't wave. She stood there like someone had died and she didn't believe it. Ron watched her all the way out of the station.

- 

They canvassed the entire train for a free compartment without success. Even a half-free compartment would have sufficed, but the only place they saw even one free seat was the Prefects' Car and Ron refused to go near it, not wanting to get roped into the meeting he was supposed to be at anyway. When Ginny and Harry approached the door, a very determined-looking fifth year Hufflepuff named Steve informed them that they were not to enter the Prefect's car under pains of "dispulsion," which sounded to Ginny like an indecisive combination of expulsion and dismemberment. Neither she nor Harry was interested in learning the actual definition firsthand, so they caught up with Ron and spent the past fifteen minutes opening every single compartment door on the entire train with the exception of the last three compartments on the left side of the last car, all of which, with their current luck, would certainly be full. Thus, in Ginny's estimation, they were approximately 18 people away from having disrupted the entire student population of Hogwarts.

She rapped her knuckles against the first of the doors.

"Yes?" It was full of seventh year Ravenclaws, including Cho Chang, whose presence didn't faze Harry nearly as much as it would have two years ago. Ginny checked his face to be certain.

"Sorry." 

"Thanks anyway." She closed the door.

Twelve people away from the goal. Ginny rapped on the second-to-last door. No answer. She tried again.

Still no answer.

She slid the door open, gaped, then closed her eyes. She turned to Ron. "Please tell me I didn't just see Draco Malfoy snogging a topless Pansy Parkinson."

Ron blanched. "Oi, Malfoy, Parkinson, get a room or something."

Malfoy removed his hand from Parkinson's thigh and ran it through his hair. "Seems to me we have a room, Weasley. The door was shut. That means it's ours. Or couldn't you tell?"

Although she was red and breathless, Pansy Parkinson didn't seem in the least bit ashamed to be showing her tits to three Gryffindors. "Draco, be nice. Weasley doesn't have much experience with ownership."

Ron's face tightened. "I'd punch you if you weren't a girl."

Parkinson smiled nastily. "Likewise. I don't hit pussies."

Ginny and Harry were quick enough to grab Ron by each shoulder. "Come on, Ron," Harry said. "You should be happy for Malfoy. He's finally shagging someone other than Crabbe and Goyle."

Malfoy ignored him. "Hey Potter, that was quite the glamour shot of you in the _Daily Prophet_. Were you foaming at the mouth or was that just some shaving cream you'd missed?"

Harry kicked the door shut.

"What was that about?" Ron asked.

"Nothing," Harry said.

"Come on." Ginny moved toward the last remaining compartment. Ron's fists were still clenched. With a small measure of trepidation, she opened the door.

Mercifully, it was empty. She could vaguely hear Malfoy and Parkinson's thumping through the compartment wall, but it was far better than seeing them in the flesh.

It took Ron five minutes to cool down and another two after that to break out the sweets and chessboard. He sat in a pile of jelly slug wrappers, moving his pieces sticky-fingered against Harry and Ginny's. At first he had protested that this alliance gave them an unfair advantage, but Harry urged him to remember a game where either of them had beaten him (there was that one time in third year when Ron had been dead-tired and Ginny had gotten Hermione to cross-reference each of his moves in _Pawn to King: Unleashing the Chess Master Within_, which completely didn't count). Understandably, he relented.

Ginny watched the game over Harry's shoulder, whispering into his ear whenever she saw a particularly brilliant move or an open opportunity. Ron, of course, was two steps ahead of both of them, but they had managed to capture his knight and were only a few moves away from cornering the queen.

"Harry, Ron, Ginny!"

The three of them looked up. Seamus stood in the door, sunburned and smiling. He held a rolled-up newspaper.

Dean was a step behind, grinning even wider than Seamus. "Ginny!" he said. She smiled and waved him over. She had been mad about him in June, but, aside from a few letters, they had barely spoken all summer. Her stomach gave a tired flip as he slipped his arm around her waist. 

Ron looked mournfully at the chessboard. Ginny smiled and Harry said, "Later, Ron."

"No, that's all right, mate," he said, picking up his rook and moving it a few squares to the right. "I was going to give you two more time to, you know, win or something, but checkmate."

Ginny blinked. She had completely forgotten that rook was even there, let alone capable of trapping their king. Harry sighed. "Oh well."

"He's won again?" Seamus knelt beside Dean. "Some day I'm going to beat you, Ron."

"Same day Ireland actually wins a Quidditch match, right, Seamus?" Since their World Cup win, the Irish national team had been decimated. One of the Chasers had left to have a baby and foreign teams had wooed away the other players with higher salaries. The only World Cup veteran still on the team was the hapless Aidan Lynch, who—as any red-blooded Englishman would point out—hadn't even caught the Snitch. Ireland hadn't won a match in nearly a year and had just suffered a particularly embarrassing defeat to Surinam.

"We shall overcome, Weasley," Seamus replied. "You wait and see."

"I'm waiting, at least." Ron smirked.

"Hey, Harry," Dean said, leaning closer to Ginny. "Have you seen the _Daily Prophet_?"

"No," Ginny answered. "Mum stopped Harry's subscription. She's been keeping it from us all week." 

"If you're talking about the one with me on the front page punching Malfoy," Harry said calmly, "yeah, I saw it." 

"How?" Ginny blinked.

"Lupin gave me a copy." 

"You didn't show it to me." Ron looked hurt.

Harry shrugged.

Seamus gestured excitedly with the paper. "I've been saving it for a week. I figured we could hang the picture in our dormitory."

"Did you really beat him up like that?" Dean said excitedly. "Right in the middle of the SPEW speech?" 

"Yeah." Harry took the paper from Seamus. Ginny scooted closer to take a look. The top fold was completely taken up by a huge photograph of Harry decking Malfoy. Photograph-Malfoy put his hands over his head and tried to run away. Photograph-Harry grabbed him by the shirt and growled, showing all of his teeth. _SPEW Sabotage! Boy-Who-Lived: Out of Control_? read the byline.

"The article makes you sound insane," Seamus said brightly, "but anyone who knows Malfoy wouldn't blame you.

Harry passed the paper to Dean. He held it out so Ginny and Ron could get a look. 

_DIAGON ALLEY, LONDON—Yesterday's SPEW inauguration ended in disaster when the Boy-Who-Lived became the Boy-Who-Fought. Halfway through the ceremony, a crazed Harry Potter leapt onto stage, spouting lies about Lucius Malfoy. Lucius's son Draco tried to stop Potter with a peaceful tap on the shoulder, but Potter refused to leave the podium. "I was shocked," says eyewitness Norrick Travers, 47. "I remember Potter screaming, and the next thing I knew he was on stage and beating poor young Malfoy's head beat against the podium. It was disgraceful. No descent wizard fights like that."_

Ginny started to skim the exposition. She knew all she wanted to know about the details of the fight from her mother's row with Harry the night after Malfoy's speech. 

_Despite Potter's uncalled-for ferocity, young Malfoy is not incurably injured. Although Draco is currently unable to walk, talk, or otherwise function, Malfoy family solicitor Cheswick Parkinson, esq., calls the poor boy's condition "serious but stable." Hopefully Draco will recover enough to return to Hogwarts when term starts next week._

"Potter's attack could have been calculated," suggests child psychologist and Prophet _consultant Henigus Rookwood. According to Rookwood, Potter's beating may have rendered Draco too weak to claim his spot as Slytherin House Quidditch Captain. "Potter is on a rival House Quidditch team," states Rookwood. "My first thought was that he may have intentionally injured the young Malfoy in an effort to remove his competition."_

Whatever the reason for Potter's attack, neither Lucius Malfoy nor SPEW have decided to press charges. "On top of wishing to spare Draco and Narcissa the stress of a trial," writes Mr. Parkinson in a statement released on behalf of the Malfoy family, "Mr. Malfoy feels that Potter was not in full control of his faculties when he attacked his son. He wishes to give Potter a second chance and extends a personal invitation to Potter to join SPEW and finally aid in the fight against evil in the world." 

"The boy has always been unhinged," said Minister Fudge, when informed of Mr. Malfoy's decision not to prosecute. 'Always making up wild stories about hippogriffs and Sirius Black. Potter's a menace, I'm telling you—a pathological liar and an egomaniac. Lucius's capacity for forgiveness is extraordinary. I cannot think of a better man to lead us in the fight against evil in the world." 

Although we admire Mr. Malfoy's superhuman clemency, The Prophet _must impress upon its readers that, in light of recent events, the Boy-Who-Lived is rapidly proving himself to be the Boy-Who-Is-Missing-One-Too-Many-Marbles. It is imperative that he be removed from the public sphere before he commits a crime that makes his attack on young Malfoy seem tame._

—R. Skeeter, Special Correspondent 

Ginny understood why Harry hadn't shown them the article.

"The _Prophet_'s a load of wank," Ron said. "Malfoy hit you first and then you get blamed." 

"Actually," Harry said, "I hit him first."

"I bet you did!" Seamus said unhelpfully.

Ginny raised an eyebrow. "That's not what you both told Mum."

Ron looked uncomfortable. "Malfoy egged Harry on. His whole SPEW speech was worse than a first punch."

The compartment door opened with a crash and Hermione burst in. "Ronald Weasley!" Hermione sounded remarkably like Mrs. Weasley when she was gearing up for a row. "Both prefects were required at the meeting and you knew it from the start. I don't know how you ever succeeded in pulling the wool over my eyes, but I looked like an idiot being the only sixth year Gryffindor there."

"Sorry, Hermione," Ron said, not looking sorry at all.

"Luckily, you weren't the only one missing. Malfoy and Parkinson didn't bother to show up at all, probably though they were too good for the Prefects' meeting—" 

Ron coughed uncomfortably.

Hermione blinked at him. "What?"

He blanched. "Er… nothing."

There was a loud thump from the direction of Malfoy and Parkinson's cabin. It was followed by another and a third. Ron turned purple. "What in the world is that?" Hermione asked.

"I think they're having engine trouble," Harry said calmly. Ginny blinked at him and started to laugh.

"Oh," Hermione blinked. "Anyway, Harry, Ernie Macmillan gave me a copy of last week's _Daily Prophet_ to show you. I think you had better take a look at it."

"We already brought it." Dean held up the paper.

"Oh hello, Seamus, Dean," Hermione said. "I didn't see you." She turned back to Harry. "So you've read it then?"

He shrugged. "Yeah."

"Lupin gave him a copy last week." Ron sulked.

"Malfoy had it coming," Seamus announced. "Harry's my hero."

"Well then maybe you should write a separate editorial telling that to the _Prophet_, because thanks to that cow Rita Skeeter, Harry is now officially a maniacal, rampaging lunatic!" Hermione crumbled Ernie's paper into a ball and pegged it against the wall.

They stared at each other openmouthed. Ron cleared his throat and sat down next to Hermione, putting a tentative hand on her shoulder. "It's all right—"

"Stop it, Ron. I'm not crying!" She jerked her head up. And she wasn't, but her face was twisted into a frown. "I just can't believe this article. It's so wrong and unfair and not you, Harry."

Harry's mouth was open. "Hermione, thanks—"

"Don't you dare thank me for caring," she snapped. "Caring's no good unless we fix this, which we're going to, even if I have to blackmail that Skeeter cow until she bleeds Galleons."

The regular thumps from the cabin next door grew louder. Hermione froze. "The engine is all the way down by the Prefects' cabin on the other side of the train." 

"Parkinson and Malfoy are having sex," Ginny clarified. "Harry and Ron were too embarrassed to say."

Hermione rolled her eyes. She gestured at Dean's copy of the _Prophet_. "Right, Malfoy's having sex, because his condition is so delicate he might not even be able to return to Hogwarts."

"Pansy Parkinson is hot for a Slytherin," Seamus said. "I'd shag her if I was in serious but stable condition."

Hermione bared her teeth. "Are you on our side, Seamus, or not?"

"He was talking hypothetical sex, Hermione," Dean said. "You shouldn't hold theory against him." Ginny laughed. Dean squeezed her waist and smiled.

And the subject was closed. Hermione grabbed Dean's _Prophet_, muttering to herself while circling important bits. The boys talked Quidditch and got in a huge argument about the Irish National Team, which was essentially everyone against Seamus. Malfoy and Parkinson were at it for another five minutes. Ginny studied Harry. Although he laughed and gestured as much as the rest of them, there was a lack of animation to his motions and a vacancy in his gaze. She could tell that Skeeter's article had really gotten to him.

-

Harry walked into the Great Hall and felt the sudden gazes. He exchanged a glance with Hermione.

"It doesn't matter," she whispered. "Just ignore them."

"It's not like I did anything out of the ordinary," he said, taking a step further into the hall. A group of Hufflepuff second years scurried out of his path. "I just beat up Malfoy."

A pretty Ravenclaw girl overheard him. She stared at Harry openmouthed.

"What?" he blinked. "He's just Malfoy."

"Excuse us," Hermione said to the Ravenclaw girl before grabbing Harry by the arm and yanking him toward the Gryffindor table.

"He's not just Malfoy anymore," she hissed when they were out of earshot.

"I don't care how powerful his father is." Harry dropped his voice. "I'm not going to take shit from him."

"And I don't think you should," Hermione whispered. "He's a nasty little brat who's just jealous of you. But I'd feel better if you were more careful." 

"Careful how?"

"Just try to stay out of his way, Harry."

"Business as usual, then."

She grabbed his arm to make him look at her. "Don't kid me. You two fight all the time, Harry. There doesn't have to be a reason."

He pried her off gently. "I don't go looking for him, Hermione. And I'm not going to start."

"Besides, he's taller than you." Ron materialized out of the crowd, leaning obnoxiously over Harry's shoulder. "And did I mention the dashing red hair?" 

"We weren't talking about you, Ron." Hermione crossed her arms.

"Oh? Who then?" His eyes narrowed. "Not Krum, was it?"

Hermione threw up her hands in exasperation. She walked towards the Gryffindor table. "Come on, Harry, I see two seats. One for you and one for me," she clarified loudly.

"It was Krum," Ron said, aghast, and then started after Hermione. "I can't believe you're still writing to that grumpy—"

Harry tuned them out, following them towards what turned out to be three empty seats at the Gryffindor table. It seemed as if at least half of the Great Hall was focused on him, though with all the students running around, greeting friends, and finding seats, it was hard to distinguish the whispers from the general hubbub. Even at the Dursleys' Harry had never really known what it was to be anonymous. Dudley and his gang singled him out as their favorite punching bag, a kid no one ought to befriend. It didn't matter that they couldn't catch him more often than not; their attention made him different. He hadn't liked it then and he hated it now.

At least the Gryffindors didn't seem to care. Dean, sitting beside Ginny and not Seamus, gave him a wolf whistle of appreciation while a gaggle of fourth years actually stood up and applauded. "Did he cry when you punched him, Harry?" one of them yelled across the table.

"Too busy bleeding," he shot back with a grin. They laughed at that while he turned and noticed Ron and Hermione a little further down. They were obviously still at it: Hermione sat down first, and when Ron tried to sit down next to her, she moved a seat away.

"You don't understand that Krum is a potential threat—" Ron was jabbing in the air with his finger to emphasize his point as Harry sat down between them.

"So," Harry said, more loudly than necessary. "What do you think is for dinner?"

"Anything you could possibly want, you've been at Hogwarts for six years, you know that," Hermione snapped. "But I will have chicken, and you'll have steak and kidney pie like you always do, and Ron will have a little bit of everything because he never did know how to make up his mind."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ron said. "I know exactly how I feel about Krum!"

Hermione made an exasperated noise and started drumming her fingers on the table. Harry began to wonder if he wouldn't be better off eating with Ginny and Dean. They seemed happy enough. Dean passed Ginny the butter when she asked for it, and they weren't arguing about it, either.

Harry wondered if he and Cho could have ever been like that. He thought about the Valentine's Day disaster. No, definitely not. Just for old times' sake, he searched her out at the Ravenclaw table and found her, interestingly enough, sitting at the opposite end from Michael Corner. Not that he had wished their relationship ill, but just the same—

"Harry!" Ron's voice broke into his thoughts. "Aren't I good at making decisions?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," he replied, trying to ignore Hermione's withering stare.

"See?" Ron said with a sweeping gesture toward Harry.

"Harry's just trying not to make you feel bad," Hermione said.

"I'm not," Harry said, feeling obligated to back Ron up, even though Hermione did have a point. "Ron's excellent at deciding things." 

"There," Ron said triumphantly.

Hermione looked a little betrayed.

"Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts." Dumbledore's voice rang out from his customary perch at the staff table. At once a hush fell over the hall. "If you would lend me your ears for a few moments—I promise I'll give them back—I have just a few words before I unleash you on our most excellent feast."

"You just don't like the food," Ron spat at Hermione, rather illogically, as she tried to hush him.

"Mr. Filch would like for me to remind you that the faculty lounge, lower dungeons, and Forbidden Forest remain off-limits to students. The full list of restricted locations is available, at the student's request, from Mr. Filch." Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as if he knew the popularity of this course of action. "On that note, I would like to add that the Forest is forbidden for a very good reason, in that, technically, it is outside the limits of Hogwarts and therefore not subject to our protection."

"We've all heard this before," Ron said, drumming his fingers impatiently. 

"And it's sunk in magnificently, too," Hermione said, staring pointedly at Ron.

"Who was tramping around in the forest after Hagrid's _little_ brother last term?" Ron raised an eyebrow, ecstatic at having one-upped Hermione.

"I am trying to listen, Ron," Hermione snapped, leaning across Harry. "Where is Hagrid anyway?"

Harry looked up at the staff table. Always conspicuous, Hagrid was even more so in his absence. His usual chair stood empty next to Professor Sprout.

"Maybe he's still bringing the first years across the lake," Ron said. "You're just trying to change the subject."

"I am not," Hermione said, sitting back in a huff.

"Second, I would like to introduce a new member of the staff. Since Madam Hooch decided to retire at the end of last year, our new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Avery, will also be serving as our Quidditch referee. All scheduling of the Quidditch pitch should go through him."

There was a smattering of polite applause as a good-looking dark-haired man stood from between Snape and Professor Sprout. He raised a hand and grinned. Harry, however, felt a stab of something cold and didn't bother to listen to Dumbledore's next announcement about Quidditch tryouts, which, by all rights, should have interested him.

"Avery?" he said quietly. Hermione and Ron both turned to him looking equally shocked.

"Dumbledore wouldn't allow a Death Eater to teach at Hogwarts," Ron said. 

"But the Ministry never repealed Educational Decree Twenty-Two," Hermione hissed, eyes wide. "Dumbledore might not have any control over who's appointed to the staff."

"I'm not a fan, but the Ministry isn't working for," Ron pitched his voice to a whisper, "You-Know-Who."

Harry felt a rush of hatred. "It's working for Malfoy. That's the same thing." 

"Maybe you should talk to Dumbledore, Harry," Hermione suggested. "Make sure he knows that an Avery—maybe not this one, but an Avery—is a Death Eater—"

"He knows," Harry cut her off, glancing up at the staff table. The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was leaning forward, hand in chin. He seemed to be reasonably attentive to Dumbledore. His robes were black, his hair dark brown—nothing seemed particularly remarkable about him, except that he was seated within a foot of Snape and not bolting for the exit. "It's too much of a coincidence," he said quietly. 

Hermione nodded.

"Avery, is it?" Lavender leaned in from across the table, her face flushed. "I heard he played Quidditch for England."

"Well, then he wasn't any good, because we still lost to Transylvania in the fourth round of the World Cup two years ago," Ron replied, casting a suspicious look up at the staff table.

"And to think he was worried about Viktor," Hermione said with a touch of a smile.

"He was a Chaser for Puddlemere United. He quit at the end of last season and no one could figure out why. I guess it was because he wanted to teach us," Parvati added, exchanging an excited glance with Lavender. "I remember his photo from Witch Weekly. He was number three on their most eligible bachelors list last year. Don't you think he looks even better in person?"

Harry supposed the question was rhetorical, because Lavender's answer was obviously "yes," and the only other girl in the area was Hermione, who would rather burn her textbooks than share her opinions on guys with Parvati. He wondered if Hermione even had opinions on guys. Taking a quick look at Ron, he supposed she must.

"He left Hogwarts a few years ago," Lavender whispered. "My sister Luvinia was a seventh year when we were firsties and she used to date Professor Avery's friend Kurt—they were on the Quidditch team together and were a year older than she was—so he has to be in his mid-twenties or something, I don't really want to do the math—"

"Don't worry, it isn't as illegal as you might think, Lavender," Hermione snapped.

Lavender pursed her mouth tight and sat back in her seat with a "humpf."

"Well, welcome back yourself, Granger," Parvati said snippily.

Harry turned his attention back to Dumbledore's speech.

"Finally, I would like to mention that, at the request of numerous students and staff members, Hogwarts will be forming a student chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Evil in the World, also known as—"

"SPEW? Here?" Ron spluttered. "No! But—how did—"

Harry's eyes narrowed. He glared at the Slytherin table. "Malfoy." 

-

The Gryffindor table buzzed for the entire meal. Parvati and Lavender continued to giggle about the new professor—who was obviously Death Eater spawn reporting back to the master, if not actually a full-fledged, Dark-Marked Death Eater—but the rest of the Gryffindor table had abandoned that conversation in favor of speculation about the Hogwarts chapter of SPEW, and Ron wasn't one to keep quiet about his views.

"How can Dumbledore allow that scum to take over the school?" Ron fumed. "Lucius Malfoy created SPEW! It's evil! That's all we need to know!"

Dean pounded his fist on the table. "That's right, Malfoy's a known Death Eater—"

"—pretending to create an evil-fighting organization—"

"More like an evil-HELPING organization!"

Even Hermione, ordinarily the voice of reason, cried, "What right does Lucius Malfoy have to bring his—his—thing to Hogwarts? There is only one SPEW at Hogwarts, and that's S.P.E.W., the Society for the Promotion of Elvish Welfare!"

Ron couldn't help grinning at Hermione's display of passion, but the smile fell from his face when he looked at Harry.

Harry was glaring straight across the room, green eyes hard and unwavering as his steak and kidney pie grew cold. Malfoy smirked right back.

"You okay there, mate?" Ron tried.

Harry didn't look away from Malfoy. "I'm fine." 

"Okay," Ron said, and returned to his dinner. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Harry not eat and continue to stare at the Slytherin table.

Ron tried to catch Hermione's eye down the table, but she was so far into her tirade that she had her eyes closed. "House-elves of the future will suffer!" she wailed. "Their suffering will be immense if no one knows about the real SPEW!" Ron refrained from mentioning that no one had known about the real SPEW to begin with, and instead kicked Hermione under the table.

"—hundreds of years from YEOW!" Hermione yelled. "Bloody hell—" She caught Ron's shut-up glare but tried to salvage her tirade anyway. "House-elves will still be as oppressed as they are today," she finished, apparently unaware of her lack of audience, and stood up after Ron's example.

"Hey Harry, you ready to head back to the Common Room?" Ron tapped him on the arm.

"What? Yeah, sure," Harry said, and slid his seat back from the table. Thankfully, the rest of the Gryffindor table was so caught up in their discussion of SPEW that nobody commented on Harry's departure.

"You didn't eat anything, mate," Ron commented. "Weren't you hungry?"

"You sound like Hermione," Harry said.

"I would ordinarily let her talk to you about it, but she was so busy whining about her bloody house-elves that she hardly noticed her own dinner, let alone yours." 

That made him smile. "Don't tell her this, but I have a feeling a lot more people are going to be interested in the new SPEW than the old one."

"I'm not going to tell her, don't worry."

Hermione met up with them just as they were pushing the doors open. "Tell who what?"

"Weasley's mother, that she's fat." Malfoy was standing in the hallway just in front of the doors.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" Ron narrowed his eyes into what he hoped were menacing slits.

"Nothing from you." Malfoy sneered. "I'd like a word with Potter."

Ron stepped in front of Harry. "He's not available."

"What's this, Potter, letting your Weasel talk for you?" Malfoy called over Ron's shoulder, or rather through Ron's shoulder: Ron was pleased to note that he had a height advantage of nearly a foot over Malfoy. 

"Harry, he isn't worth it," Hermione said, laying a cautioning hand on Harry's shoulder, to which Ron added, "You don't need to deal with him, Harry, I've got it under control." 

Malfoy smirked at that. Ron sneered at Malfoy.

Harry disregarded Ron and Hermione's words. "Malfoy," he acknowledged the scum icily.

"Potter." Malfoy nodded slightly, stepping to Ron's side so he could look Harry in the eye. "What do you think of the new SPEW chapter we're going to have here?" 

"Honestly, Malfoy?" Malfoy nodded, so Harry continued, "It kind-of reminds me of you. In the sense that it's nothing but a big load of bullshit."

Instead of getting mad, Malfoy just shrugged. "Pity. I was thinking of asking you to be the Gryffindor section president."

"Gryffindor section president?" Harry repeated, and then spat, "I'd rather barf."

Malfoy grinned. "Don't you mean you'd rather SPEW?"

Hermione crossed her arms. "That wasn't funny."

Malfoy didn't look at her. "Shut up, Granger."

"It really wasn't funny, Malfoy," Harry said calmly, looking down at his hand. He stretched his fingers wide and curled them pensively into a fist. "Sometimes you're amusing in a small, sick sort of way, but that didn't even come close."

Malfoy loosened his tie. "I'm going to beat your head into the floor, Potter. How's that for funny?"

Harry's mouth twitched. "Can't think of a better way to kill me?"

"Don't need to."

"All right, then, give your wand to Ron."

Malfoy and Ron both looked at him. "What?"

"Give your wand to Ron," Harry repeated, taking his own out of his pocket and handing it to Ron, who took it, bewildered. "If you want to fight me, by all means, but we'll do it fair, without magic."

"Harry, don't be stupid," Hermione snapped.

Everyone ignored her. Malfoy crossed his arms. "Why should I play by your rules?"

Harry smirked. "Because if you don't, I won't play."

"I'll make you."

"Give your wand to Ron."

"He'll break it."

"I will," Ron agreed.

"Give it to Hermione, then."

"No Mudblood is going to touch my wand." 

"I don't trust you with it," Harry said.

Malfoy smiled, showing all of his teeth. "You trust me without it?" 

They stared at each other for a moment and neither one flinched. Then Harry shrugged. "Too bad," he said. "I've wanted to grind your head into the ground for the past—actually, ever since I met you." Very calm, he straightened his tie and turned his back on Malfoy. "Come on, Ron, Hermione. Let's go back up to the Tower."

He started to walk towards the staircase. Unlike Ron and Hermione, his back was to Malfoy and he couldn't see the look on the Slytherin's face.

Malfoy made a running start and threw himself onto Harry's back. He waved his wand in front of Harry's face, then grabbed it with his right hand as well and pulled it tight across Harry's throat. Harry blanched. "There, are you satisfied?" he sneered, still clinging onto Harry's back. "No magic." He gave the wand a violent jerk and the two of them overbalanced and landed in a heap on the ground.

Harry's face was white and he was coughing but he still managed to punch sideways into Malfoy's face. Malfoy rolled to avoid the punch, and Harry scrambled after him, caught hold of his tie, and looped it around his knuckles. He pulled.

Malfoy's face turned red and he spat something on the ground. Harry wrenched the wand out of Malfoy's fist and threw it across the hall. "So, Malfoy," his voice was almost conversational, "can rich boys fight with their hands?"

They both scrambled to their feet, panting. Malfoy grabbed Harry by the hair and pulled him into a headlock, kicking at his legs. Harry seized Malfoy's shirt, balling it in his fists. Malfoy kicked Harry in the kneecap and Harry fell to the floor.

"I'd call you a poor boy," Malfoy hissed, kneeling beside Harry, "but that's only for Weasley."

Ron tried to dive at Malfoy but Hermione was too quick, grabbing his arm and yanking him back. Harry had already grabbed Malfoy's collar and thrown him to the ground. Malfoy tried to roll, but Harry planted a knee on either side of him and slammed his shoulders into the floor.

Malfoy's head cracked against the stone. He yelled and jerked upward, trying to grab Harry. All he could get was Harry's tie, but he took it with both hands. Just as Harry pulled him up to shove him into the floor again, Malfoy yanked on the tie, hard, and the two of them slammed into the floor. Harry pulled up, white and choking, and punched Malfoy hard. His fist came away bloody and Malfoy yanked the tie tighter.

"What do you think you're doing?" Ron turned. It was the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Avery, striding out of the Great Hall followed by a scattered group of students. Hermione saw Seamus, Dean, and Ginny as well as Crabbe, Goyle, Pansy Parkinson and a tall, unwashed Slytherin who she vaguely thought was named Theodore Nott. He pulled Harry off Malfoy, who dropped the tie before Avery could see it in his fist.

"Oh, my head," Malfoy moaned from the floor. "Potter just attacked me."

Harry, justifiably furious, lunged at Malfoy. Avery placed a hand on his shoulder and Harry stopped.

"That's a lie," Ron said. "We were here the whole time," he gestured at himself and Hermione, "and that slimy git"—he jabbed Harry's wand at Malfoy—"jumped on Harry first."

"Language, Weasley," Avery said mildly.

"How do you know my name?" Ron said suspiciously.

Avery half-smiled. "I was warned about the four of you. You'd be Mr. Weasley, and then there's Miss Granger, and Mr. Malfoy, and Mr. Potter, of course."

Hermione blinked, but recovered her composure. "Ron's right, though, Professor," she said. "Malfoy did start it."

"Isn't Granger here a little too close to the situation to be impartial?" Malfoy said quickly.

Hermione glared at him, but Malfoy was watching Avery's face.

"You have a point, Mr. Malfoy," Avery said. "Since there are no unbiased witnesses, I will have to go by the school rules. No fighting in the halls. Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy, you're both sixth years, I would hope you'd have learned that by now. Detention for both of you."

"But Professor Avery," Malfoy flashed an insincere smile, "shouldn't Weasley and Granger get detention, too? Seeing as they watched the fight and did nothing to prevent it…"

"Ron and Hermione tried to stop me," Harry cut in. "I just didn't listen to them. They shouldn't get detention."

"You can't trust Potter, Professor," Malfoy said. He was still sprawled across the floor. 

Avery held up his hands for quiet. "As Mr. Malfoy has already proven, there are no impartial witnesses. I have no credible evidence that Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger encouraged the fight. Therefore, I have to conclude that they've done nothing wrong, and as such, neither of them will receive detentions."

Malfoy scowled.

"Mr. Malfoy, Mr. Potter, I recommend that you remove yourselves from the floor," Avery added, and walked off. 

Malfoy clutched at the wall as he began to clamber up. "Oh, my ribs." He faked a moan.

"Let's go back to the Tower," Harry said, and Ron turned to leave, but Malfoy yelled, "Potter!" because the mangy ferret just didn't learn, did he? 

"What?" Harry said.

"I'm going to kill you with a fork."

"Just ignore him, Harry," Hermione said, and took his arm to steer him away.

"Potter!" Malfoy yelled again, but Ron stepped between Harry's retreating back and Malfoy. Spending any more time around Malfoy was the last thing Harry needed.


	4. Purgatory

**Title:** Diagon Burning (4/20)

**Author name:** One Eyed JAck

**Rating:** R

**Summary:** Harry Potter is one of the few who remain skeptical when Lucius Malfoy emerges from Azkaban with a full pardon and a plan to start an evil-fighting organization. Exposing Malfoy as a fraud won't be easy amid lies, fights, and hidden agendas. One motorway accident, two definitions for SPEW, three levels of Ministry alert, and lots of four-nication. **_Chapter 4-Purgatory:_** Draco gets ass, Professor Avery wears Quidditch gear, and Harry gets familiar with purgatory. Not the place.

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Some canon information in this chapter comes from the Lexicon.

**Author notes:** Special thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far as well as to Gena and Oli and co. for the betas. Naodrith and Alissa Raboin also looked over earlier versions of the fic.

**Diagon Burning**

**Chapter 4:**

**Purgatory**

The first day of term, Harry woke up, showered, walked down to the Great Hall and proceeded to write DIE in his porridge with his right index finger.

The enchanted ceiling was gray and foreboding and Hermione wore a frown to match. "You really should eat your breakfast, Harry," she said, fixing him with a critical stare. "I'm not sure touching it lets you tap into its full nutritional value."

"Thank you, Hermione." Harry jammed his finger deeper into the porridge. "I had no idea." He wished he hadn't gotten out of bed.

"Eat some bacon, then," she said, pushing the serving bowl toward him. "You'll starve and make yourself sick."

"That is pretty nasty, mate," Ron said, peering at Harry's breakfast over Hermione's shoulder. "Not that I don't sympathize with not wanting to eat the porridge—"

Harry flicked some gruel at him. Ron ducked and it hit a little first year girl in the face. She turned around, shocked, and, seeing Harry with his guilty hand still dripping, promptly burst into tears and rushed out of the hall.

"You great bully," Hermione remarked dryly, taking a bit of toast.

Harry looked at Ron and, at the same instant, they burst out laughing.

A chorus of hoots heralded the arrival of the morning post. Harry was just about to actually eat some porridge when the _Daily Prophet_ landed smack in the middle of his bowl. He fished it out and wiped the gruel off on Ron's shoulder as Hermione paid the delivery owl its three Knuts. When they unfolded it, Harry's first thought was relief that there was nothing about Malfoy or SPEW. The byline read _A "GIANT" ACCIDENT_, which seemed harmless enough compared to Rita Skeeter's recent scoops. The story featured a picture of two Ministry of Magic Obliviators waving in front of an overturned Muggle tractor-trailer. A bloody thumb the size of Hermione hung from the truck's grate.

"Listen to this," Hermione said, beckoning Harry and Ron closer as she began to read the paper:

"_GRAMPIAN, SCOTLAND—A motorway catastrophe occurred just seven miles north of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when asixteen foot giant wandered onto a Muggle interstate, colliding with a truck. Understandably, the Muggle driver did not survive the collision, but he gave as good as he got. Pieces of the giant have been found as far away as Laurencekirk, eighteen miles to the north. _

"_With such a large crash radius and so many Muggles on the scene, the Ministry of Magic had one of its toughest cleanup challenges in years. 'Forget the riots at the Quidditch World Cup,' said Haggis Jenkins, Head of the Department of Magical Catastrophes, 'we haven't faced a disaster this bad since Ilfacombe Incident of 1932.' A source inside Jenkins's department tells the _Prophet_ that the Ministry had to cast Memory Charms on more than 200 Muggles, as well as locate nearly as many pieces of the giant. The remains were banished to an undisclosed, yet sanitary, location. _

"_According to Muggle eyewitnesses, who have since been Obliviated, the giant wandered out of the pine forest on the right side of the motorway at approximately 8:13 yesterday morning. Apparently not noticing the eight lanes of traffic, it walked right onto the expressway, causing sixteen car collisions before being hit itself. 'One minute I was driving,' says Therese P. Hartwick, a Muggle tourist from York, 'and the next the little ones were screaming and the biggest man I'd ever seen was tramping across the highway with a pine tree stuck in his mouth like a toothpick!' _

"_But what was a giant doing in England in the first place? They've been banned from entering or residing in the country since the Repatriation of Unfriendly Races Act of 1978 which, as the reader certainly remembers, was passed by the Ministry in response to the giants' oath of allegiance to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. As well as a toothpick, the pine tree might serve as the key to unlock this insidious and dark mystery. The woods the giant wandered out of are in fact the back end of what many Hogwarts alumni remember as the Forbidden Forest. In fact, as mentioned in the beginning of this article, the accident took place only seven miles from the grounds of the Hogwarts School. _

"_It would be little short of calling Albus Dumbledore senile to suggest that he had no idea what was lurking so close to his school. How could the wizard who discovered the twelve uses of dragon's blood and defeated the dark wizard Grindelwaldoverlook a giant? That's hardly a small detail. He must have known about it. In that case, why would Albus Dumbledore possibly allow such a dangerous beast near our children? Even though the answer can only be troubling, in no way would the _Prophet _like to suggest that Dumbledore's ambition has grown so great he would consort with Giants in an attempt to increase his power, putting our children indesperate danger as a result. _

"'_I will of course be directing SPEW to make a full and impartial inquiry into the Headmaster Dumbledore's involvement,' saidLucius Malfoy, public servant and father of Hogwarts sixth year Draco, when informed of the accident. 'Such an investigation is essential to ensure the safety of our children.'" _

There was a shocked silence.

"Well." Hermione obviously didn't know quite what else to say. "That explains why Hagrid wasn't at the staff table last night."

Harry couldn't quite believe it. "Grawp got hit by a truck."

"No, I'm sure it was the other giant lurking around the Forbidden Forest," Hermione said dryly.

Ron paled. "Don't say that. I wouldn't put it past Hagrid to invite his extended family."

"Oh, I knew tying Grawp to the pine trees was a bad idea!" Hermione threw the _Prophet_ down on the table. "He was ripping them out left and right and it was only a matter of time before he got loose. Hagrid should have known better than to bring him here."

"I think Hagrid's probably figured that out by now, Hermione," Harry said. "Considering that they found bits of Grawp in Laurencekirk."

Hermione scowled. "And Lucius Malfoy's blaming Dumbledore! I just can't believe him."

"Unfortunately, you're pretty much alone on that." Harry poked his porridge angrily.

"Ron doesn't believe Malfoy either," she said. "And you don't, Harry—and most of Gryffindor and the Order—we all know he's lying." Harry rewrote DIE in his porridge and tried not to look at her.

Ron nodded. He had a quiet, contemplative look on his face that was almost altogether unfamiliar. "We'll beat SPEW, Harry. Even if we die doing it." Harry and Hermione blinked at him. He flushed. "Not that I'm planning on death or anything."

-

When Pansy and Draco arrived at breakfast, Theodore Nott was staging a loud conversation with Millicent Bullstrode and Blaise Zabini, both of whom looked exceedingly bored.

"So my only question for Malfoy is, what is he thinking, getting in another fight with Potter before he's even been at school twenty-four hours? I mean, it's hardly the most politic of moves."

Pansy sat down between Draco and Nott. Draco reached for a platter and calmly buttered a piece of toast.

"He came out as the clear victim last week in Diagon Alley, but what does he do? He's got an advantage over Potter, and he blows it. How? By getting in a fight with—guess who—Potter! Again!"

Pansy tapped Nott on the shoulder. He jumped. "Hey Nott," she said, "seems to me Draco doesn't care."

Draco brushed the crumbs from the toast onto his napkin.

"Well, he should care—he can't go letting an uppity half-blood get the best of him."

Blaise whispered something to Millicent, who snorted a laugh. Hardly the most ladylike of characters, Millicent. Nott seemed to sense he was losing his audience. Pansy smirked at her bowl of porridge.

Nott cleared his throat and reached across Pansy to thump his fist on the table in front of Draco's plate. "So, Malfoy, how's your affair with Potter going?"

Draco didn't even deign to reply to that. He reached across Pansy and emptied the crumbs from his napkin onto Nott's lap. Nott's grin faltered but he didn't back down. "Getting some good action with him, are you?"

"What are you going on about, Nott?" Pansy said, examining her nails. Her right pinky nail was a little ragged. She had a habit of gnawing on it when she got bored.

"Oh, nothing in particular."

Draco had finished his toast and was now dissecting an orange.

"You didn't mean nothing," Pansy said pleasantly, placing a hand on Nott's thigh.

He swallowed.

"Now, would you mind," her fingers slid higher, "telling me exactly what it was you meant by that?"

Nott, she noticed, seemed to be having some difficulty breathing. Experimentally, she flicked her fingers to the inside of his thigh. His breath hitched.

"Nott?" she said sweetly.

If their smirks were any indication, Blaise and Millicent seemed to be enjoying the show immensely.

Nott exhaled. "Nothing."

She dipped her fingers under and stroked. "Really."

"It's just that"—swallow—"with the amount of time that"—inhale—"Malfoy spends trying to"—Pansy grabbed him; he gripped at the edge of the table—"get at Potter"—ragged exhale, and the next words came out in a rush—"you'd think he was trying to get into Potter's pants."

"Now, Nott," she said patiently, "what part of Draco constantly tormenting Potter makes you think he'd want in Potter's pants?" She continued to stroke.

Nott looked pointedly at her hand.

She laughed. "Ah, Nott. It was a good try. But," she grinned, and gripped him tighter, "there's a problem with your logic." She leaned in close and whispered against his ear, "I don't want in your pants." With one last squeeze she released him, and just in time, too: a second later he ruined his trousers. He would have to change them and be late for first bell Advanced Potions, and wouldn't that be fun, to see what he told Snape?

Draco stood up. "I'm going to go bother Weasley."

Pansy cocked her head at him. "What? Why?"

"Because I can."

-

"Hey Weasley," Malfoy sneered, walking up to the Gryffindor table. "Your mother's fat."

"Hey Malfoy," Ron snapped back, "your mother's a whore."

Harry laughed.

Malfoy shrugged. "No, that's what your mother would be if she wasn't so fat."

"Talk to Ron like that and I'll hit you so hard you forget how to move."

"Make sure you bring a fork then, Potter," Malfoy said unintelligibly.

Harry made a stabbing gesture and, apparently satisfied, Malfoy walked back to the Slytherin table. Harry picked up his spoon, scooped out DIE, and flicked it at the back of Malfoy's head. It stuck. The day was looking a lot better.

"Good, everyone's established that they can, indeed, act like first years," Hermione shook her head, "in case there was any doubt after the SPEW speech."

Ron blinked at Harry. "A fork?"

Harry shrugged. "Malfoy was being dramatic in jail, saying he'd kill me and grind me into the ground until I bled and stuff. So I just told him I'd beat him to death with a fork. Which I would," he said pleasantly.

"Then I'll be sure to carry one around," Ron said, pocketing his fork.

Hermione muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Boys."

"Oh, come on." Harry smiled at her. "You'd run Malfoy through if you had the chance."

"I'd choose something long, sharp, and effective, though," she said meditatively. "Not a fork."

"A spear?" Ron suggested. "A sword?"

Hermione smiled. "I was thinking a kabob."

"Yum," Harry commented.

Ron smirked. "How would the _Prophet_ cover that, I wonder?"

Harry didn't miss a beat. _"Malfoy Heir Impaled on Kabob, Dead from Massive Trauma."_

Hermione shrugged. "I doubt even his father could glorify that one."

"_Malfoy Heir Sacrifices Self to Help Solve World Hunger?"_ Harry suggested.

Hermione made a face. "That was rhetorical. Stop being such a pessimist."

"I don't think he'd make a huge dent in the problem," Ron said, offhand. "The sight of Malfoy really puts me off food."

"They don't have to put that in the article, though," Hermione said.

"You know," Harry remarked, "I guess the long-term probability of Malfoy being run through with a kabob is really small."

"Dammit," Ron said wistfully.

-

When Malfoy walked into Potions class, he still hadn't noticed the wad of gruel stuck the to back of his head. If Harry looked carefully, he thought he could still make out the word DIE. If only the rest of the class had been quite so satisfying. Harry and Hermione filed into the Potions classroom, followed by Padma Patil and Terry Boot. It was a fully inter-House class—most upper-level classes were, it turned out—although a quick glance around the room confirmed that Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were disturbing outnumbered: he and Hermione made up the entire Gryffindor contingent, and Hannah Abbott was the lone Hufflepuff. The rest of the class included half a dozen Ravenclaws and every single Slytherin in the year. The Slytherins sneered and catcalled as Harry and Hermione selected a table near the middle. "Let's see how long you last, Potter," Pansy Parkinson jeered. "I wouldn't give you a week."

Harry ignored her and sat down. Nothing worse than usual. Hannah Abbott, who had never spoken a word to Harry—had never spoken a word at all, that he could remember hearing—squeaked and scurried to the furthest-back table in the room. The Slytherins cackled. Theodore Nott burst through the door, late, and doing up his belt. For some reason the Slytherins cackled again.

"May I have your attention," Snape said. Harry turned and nearly yelled: Snape stood directly in front of his desk. "Potter," Snape said softly. The Slytherins laughed. The slimy bastard must have snuck up on him while he was watching Hannah.

"Yes, sir?" Harry said, doggedly attempting politeness.

"As you all know," Snape said, turning away from Harry without even threatening a detention, amazingly, "this is my Advanced Potions class, Level One of two, in preparation for the N.E.W.T. exam for which you will sit at the conclusion of your seventh year. In order to be admitted into this class, you must have scored an Outstanding on your O.W.L., although admission is, of course, subject to the teacher's discretion." That explained how Crabbe and Goyle had made it into the class, because if those two had scored an O on the Potions O.W.L., Harry would eat Buckbeak. He watched Goyle drool on the desk. Alive.

When Harry looked back at Snape, he thought he saw a glint of something ugly flash through his beady black eyes, but he turned away from Harry and continued, "Therefore, I will expect you to maintain a higher level of competency than in previous years. Ineptitude," he did not pretend to stare at anyone but Harry, "will not be tolerated."

Harry could feel the Slytherins smirking across the room.

"So," Snape continued. "We will begin with a Disarming Draught. This potion is most commonly used against opposing wizards before duels, as it prevents the wizard from performing defensive magic on himself and slows his reflexes. The first half of this potion consists of the Draft of Peace, which you learned last year. As Potions has always been a cumulative course, there should be no need for me to remind you of the brewing instructions for this potion. Every ingredient you need you will find in your Advanced Potions kit—provided," Snape said silkily, "that you have an Advanced Potions kit." Harry swallowed. "You have fifteen minutes. If you are not finished at the end of that time, you will receive no marks. Begin."

"You don't have an Advanced Potions kit?" Hermione hissed after he mumbled a request for powdered badger claw.

"I didn't know I was going to be in Advanced Potions!" Harry whispered furiously.

"You got an O on the exam, you had to have known!"

"Snape all but told me I wasn't in his class. He sent me an owl that said the day he'd let me in would be the day he was no longer Potions Master!"

"You shouldn't make assumptions," Hermione huffed, but fiddled around in her satchel and pulled out a second Advanced Potions kit.

"You bought two?" Harry said. "No, that's not surprising."

"You can never be too prepared," Hermione said, measuring out a tablespoon of essence of hellebore.

"Right," Harry said, and opened the potions kit. Draft of Peace…he desperately tried to remember. Something about wormwood, and increasing the heat while stirring seven times…

When Snape called time, the contents of Harry's cauldron were pale gray. He glanced at Hermione's perfectly clear potion. What had he done wrong? Was it the—

"Add three drops of leech juice," Hermione whispered. "That should neutralize it."

Harry glanced up. Snape was checking the Slytherins' cauldrons; he should have time. He dropped in the leech juice and the potion turned clear. "Thanks," he said. "I couldn't have—" He stopped at Hermione's warning eyes.

"Potter," Snape said. "Let's see how you've done with this one." He examined the contents of Harry's cauldron, looked up, and said, "Not too badly."

Harry blinked. "What?"

"You successfully created the Draft of Peace," Snape said. "Here are the instructions for the rest of the Disarming Draught. You may continue."

After Snape checked Hermione's cauldron, she turned to Harry, incredulous. "Was Snape just civil to you?" she said.

"He must have inhaled fumes from the Draft of Peace," Harry said. "Made him forget who he was."

"Must be," Hermione said, and returned to her cauldron.

Harry glanced at the instructions. _Powder one small bicorn horn, add, stir four times. Increase heat to 170 degrees, stir three times. Crush five bats' eyes..._

"Five minutes," Snape said. Harry looked down. His dark red potion was nowhere closer to Hermione's milky white. "Mr. Malfoy, will you help me to inspect the potions? Take the left side of the room."

"Of course, sir." Malfoy stood up and walked over to Hannah Abbott. "A nice effort, but you failed miserably." She burst into tears.

"You forgot to add thistlewing," he told Mandy Brocklehurst.

"You stirred counterclockwise, McDougall," he said to Morag. "It's always clockwise after adding liquids, don't you know that?"

He arrived at Hermione's side. Her potion was perfect, everyone knew it, but Malfoy still said, "You added half a bat-claw too many, Granger."

"It has no effect on the potion," Hermione said. "Bat claws act as neutralizing agents in this potion."

Malfoy smiled superior. "Even so, you should know better than to tolerate sloppiness."

He turned to Harry. "Well, Potter," he said, eyeing Harry's cauldron, "what have we here?"

"A Disarming Draught."

Malfoy laughed. "No, I don't think we do. In fact, I don't have any idea what you did. Do you, Potter?"

Harry narrowed his eyes.

"Oh, Professor," Malfoy called. "I think you need to take a look in Potter's cauldron."

Snape didn't look up from his discussion with Goyle.

"Professor?" Malfoy scowled, impatient. "I guess I'll just have to go get him." As he walked past, his hand knocked against the bottle of dingbat droppings Harry had left open, sending it flying into the cauldron. The potion let up a puff of ugly purple smoke and began to boil dark green.

"Did you see that?" Harry hissed at Hermione. "Malfoy knocked the—"

"Mr. Potter." Snape had finished talking to Malfoy. "I wonder if you would be so kind as to test your potion for the rest of the class." He smiled nastily. "On yourself."

"But sir—"

"If you managed to brew the potion correctly, it should have no more effect on you than to make you feel slightly lethargic. Fill a beaker now, Potter, and come forward."

Hermione took one look at his potion and swallowed, which was not particularly reassuring. Harry dipped the beaker into the cauldron and walked to the front of the room.

Snape took the beaker from Harry and examined it. "Well," he smirked, "I can guarantee that that is not a Disarming Draught. What could it be?"

The Slytherins grinned but didn't say anything. Harry doubted that they knew, either.

"I suppose there is one way to find out. Drink it, Potter."

"No."

Snape stared him down. "An Advanced Potions student should never create a potion of which he does not know the effects. I expect, therefore, that you know exactly what you have brewed. Drink the potion, Potter, or I will force you to drink it."

"You can't force me to drink it."

"Do you remember your lifetime ban from Quidditch, Potter?" Snape's eyes bored dark into Harry's. "Umbridge never lifted it. Dumbledore may have ceased to enforce it, but if I were to remind someone…" He fingered his wand. "Fudge, for instance…I think that, in light of recent events, he might remember why it is…dangerous to have someone like you in the air, with so many opportunities to cause harm to your fellow students."

Harry glared at him. "You wouldn't."

"Really?"

Malfoy laughed. "Go ahead and refuse to drink the potion, Potter. I'll be more than happy to see you banned from the Quidditch pitch."

That did it. Harry tipped the beaker back and downed it in a single gulp.

Nothing happened. Snape and Malfoy in particular looked disappointed. But then a loud rumble escaped from somewhere in Harry's gut, and Malfoy began to snicker.

"Mr. Malfoy," Snape said, "do you know what Potter has managed to create?"

Malfoy had trouble talking through his snickering. "I think, sir, he's made some variety of Purgatory Potion."

"Purgatory?" Harry said.

"Not the place, Potter, although I'm sure it will feel like you're there after a few hours," Snape said, amused. "It is a form of purgative, and a very strong one you've made, if the volume of those noises is any indication. Consider yourself, lucky," he added with a nasty smile. "All you have to do is add knotgrass to create the quick, deadly, and incredibly effective Rasputin's poison. It's virtually undetectable, because it tastes exactly like vodka."

Harry still didn't understand, but Pansy Parkinson yelled"Potter's gonna barf" and suddenly the upward movement of his bowels made sense. He blanched.

"Why don't you get out of here, Potter, before you embarrass yourself worse than you already have?" Blaise Zabini said.

Harry ran from the classroom, Malfoy and Snape's laughter rising above the laughs of all the others as the door slammed behind him.

-

During lunch Draco pulled Pansy into a storage closet and pushed her up against the wall.

"What was that for?" she said. He removed his hand from under her skirt.

"No, not that. Don't stop," she said. "I meant this morning. What was that with Weasley?"

"Don't bring up the Weasel while we're snogging."

Pansy ignored him. "Why'd you go after Weasley after Nott said you only bothered Potter? You didn't have to go after a different Gryffindor just to prove something to Nott. You don't care what that little piece of shit says."

He bit her neck. "I wasn't," he said, "trying to prove anything to Nott."

"Well then, what were you doing? Why'd you go after Weasley?"

"Because I could."

That was the same answer he'd given her before, and it didn't mean a thing. He hadn't even said it to her face this time; he was staring at her left breast like he expected it to start talking or something. But before she could probe further he said, "Shouldn't I be asking you why you gave Nott a hand job at breakfast?"

She smirked and parroted back, "Because I could."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I was interrogating him."

"That's an interesting method of interrogation."

"Effective, too. Use what they want against them." She grabbed the bulge in his pants.

"Ah," he said. "And where did you pick up this particular technique?"

She grinned. "From you."

-

Defense Against the Dark Arts was still an unknown quantity. Harry walked in between Hermione and Ron. He had spent all of lunch throwing up in the bathroom. Luckily, Hermione had found him at the end of the period. She gave him a roll and an Indigestion Charm, and although Harry still felt a little queasy, she had forbidden him from skipping class. Thankfully, there were no Slytherins in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The most menacing thing in the classroom was Lavender and Parvati, who were sitting in the front row, giggling something about professional Quidditch players and the size of their broomsticks.

Hermione made an exasperated noise. "Those two wouldn't even be here if Professor Avery wasn't halfway decent looking."

Parvati, having heard, turned around. "Like you'd never act that way, Hermione."

Ron's cough sounded suspiciously like "Lockhart."

Hermione glared as they filed into the second row. Harry pointedly refused to take out his book. Avery hadn't changed the book since Umbridge's choice of _Defensive Magical Theory_ last year and he'd rather take double Potions than spend another year with that trash.

Seamus, Dean, and Neville sat down behind them and a hush fell over the room, broken only by Lavender's excited giggles.

"Get over it," Seamus said to Lavender. "Harry and Ron play Quidditch, too!"

Lavender glowered at him.

The door clicked open.

Parvati squealed and Lavender fainted. Harry looked at Ron and they both started to laugh.

Avery strode into the room clad in full Quidditch regalia, protective gear and cloak. His colors and insignia proclaimed him a member of the Chudley Cannons squad, but from Ron's fanaticism and Harry's friendship with Ron, they both knew those robes weren't the actual team robes. Ron's dad had bought Ron the same Official Fan Replica Robes at a Cannons game when he was eight; they still hung on the wall over his bed at the Burrow.

"Professor Snape bet me ten Galleons that if I wore Quidditch robes to class, at least one girl would faint," Avery said, surveying the classroom. "I guess I owe him some gold. Would someone mind escorting Miss…"

"Brown," Parvati piped up.

"Would someone mind escorting Miss Brown to the Hospital Wing?"

"Oh, uh, I'm sure Lavender will recover quickly, Professor Avery, and she'd really hate to miss your first class," Parvati said hastily. If she batted her eyelashes a little more rapidly she'd probably pass out herself. "See? She's recovering already."

Lavender moaned accordingly.

Avery looked at her sideways and then opened a door on his desk, pulling out a piece of parchment. "This will be the first and only time I'll call roll—just to get everybody's name down. I think by sixth year you're all too old for a rigid disciplinarian. If you come to class or not, it's your choice, and you're old enough to understand the consequences." He looked down at the parchment. "Lavender Brown."

Lavender gave a weak moan.

"Seamus Finnegan."

"Here." Seamus raised a hand. "So you're saying we can skip?"

"I'm saying that if you come to class, you'll learn something, and if you don't, it's your loss," Avery said. "Hermione Granger."

"Present." Hermione raised a hand. There was a small smile on her face, which was surprising. Harry had figured she wouldn't be too pleased with Avery's attendance policy.

Avery made a tick by her name. "Neville Longbottom."

"Here."

"Parvati Patil?"

"Yes?" Parvati smiled.

"Harry Potter."

"Yeah." Harry raised his hand. Avery met his gaze for a second and then his eyes flickered upward to the scar. Harry stared at Avery. Avery looked away.

"Dean Thomas."

"Here."

Avery made a tick on his list. "And that would leave Ronald Weasley."

"Ron, and present," Ron said, raising his hand.

"Good, then," Avery said, tossing the list onto his desk. "Now, wands away."

Harry's throat tightened. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't stand another year like Umbridge.

Either unaware of or purposefully ignoring the class's grumbling, Avery picked up a piece of chalk and wrote:

ENEMIES OF THE MINISTRY

on the board in wide block lettering. He let the chalk drop.

"Now, could someone define this term for me?" He looked around the class. "Anyone?"

They stared at him silently.

He nodded. "As I expected." He picked up the chalk again and added, beneath ENEMIES OF THE MINISTRY,

DEATH EATERS

"Who can define this term for me?"

The class was still silent, now out of disbelief.

Harry didn't bother raising his hand. "Murdering bastards."

Avery looked at him. "Eloquently put, Mr. Potter, but let's take a look at our textbook, shall we? Please turn to page three, in the chapter _'What is Defense Against the Dark Arts?'"_

"I'll read!" Parvati's hand shot into the air.

Avery nodded slightly. "Third paragraph from the top."

Parvati found her place. "_The Ministry of Magic_," she began, "_is a peaceful body that maintains excellent relations with the overwhelming majority of British wizards and foreign governments. The Ministry prides itself on its standards of decency and justice for wizardkind."_

"Lying bastards," Harry said, but no one appeared to notice.

"_However,"_ Parvati continued, _"the Ministry understands that not all wizards, organizations, and wizarding nations place so firm an emphasis on these values as the Ministry does. The Ministry recognizes, therefore, that certain measures must be taken to protect the wizarding public from these enemies of the Ministry."_

"That's all, Miss Patil, thank you," Avery said. "Now, Mr. Weasley, could you explain who these enemies of the Ministry might be?"

"Death Eaters," Ron said without hesitation.

"Exactly." Avery held up the book. "The point of that little exercise is this: in newspapers and books, as in conversations, what people say and what they mean are entirely different matters. Therefore, one of the most important skills you can ever hope to develop is the ability to read between the lines. Homework: find me an article in the _Daily Prophet_ or any other newspaper and tell me what it's actually saying." He put the book down. "Class dismissed."

Seamus looked at his watch. "That was five minutes."

"It's a trick," Neville said.

But Avery was already out the door.

Dean shrugged. "I'm going to go find Ginny before Transfiguration." And he was gone too. Neville, Seamus, Parvati, and Lavender weren't far behind.

Hermione looked pensive. "That was a surprise."

"I thought he was a Death Eater," Harry said.

"Me too," Ron added.

"Well there's nothing to say he isn't," Hermione said. "We just know he's not stupid."

"And he owns Chudley Cannons souvenir robes," Ron volunteered.

"Which has exactly nothing to do with it," Hermione said.

"A Death Eater wouldn't wear Cannons souvenir robes," Ron insisted. "The Cannons don't sell robes to Death Eaters. And can you imagine Malfoy wearing Cannons robes? It'd be a disgrace to the name Chudley."

"Malfoy would never wear orange robes," Harry said. "It'd make him look like an inmate."

"Now that's the way I want to see Malfoy," Ron said.

Something about Malfoy was tickling at the edge of Harry's mind. Malfoy. Death Eater. Something to do with—"Hermione, what was the name of the law firm that sent me the probation letter?"

"What?" Ron said.

"Parkinson, Avery, and Bloom," she replied immediately. Then, "Avery."

Harry nodded, and eventually Ron caught on. "Same family, you think?"

"Yes," Harry said.

"It must be." Hermione's eyes widened. "That would connect him with the Malfoys. Not directly, but…"

"Yes, it would," Harry said.

"Well." Hermione drummed her fingers on the desk. "We now know that he's smart enough to hide it."

Ron smirked. "Maybe we should read between the lines."

Hermione smacked him on the side of the head. "Shut up, Ron."

"He wants us to like him," Harry said, thinking hard.

Hermione sighed. "Which means we can't trust him at all. As if a Death Eater name and Malfoy connections weren't bad enough."

"Constant vigilance," Ron growled. His Moody impression was surprisingly good.

Harry laughed. "See, Hermione? We have learned something."

She rolled her eyes. "In theory."

-

Avery opened the door after only the second knock. "Mr. Malfoy, Miss Parkinson, please come in. What can I do for you?"

"Professor Avery! How are you?" Pansy said. Without waiting for an answer, she hurried on, "We just wanted to welcome you back to Hogwarts."

"We're glad you're our new DADA teacher," Draco said. "At Quidditch tryouts my second year, I remember hearing about Cal Avery. I never thought you'd become my teacher." He wondered if he was laying it on a little thick, but Pansy cut him off.

"Here's a token of our welcome," she said, thrusting what looked like a knobby ball of wool at Avery. "Some of our housemates made it."

Avery unfolded it and studied it for a few seconds. "It's a hat," he said finally, as if it surprised him.

"Crabbe and Goyle knitted it for you," Draco told him. The hat was green and gray in alternating stripes of varying widths—he supposed that keeping the stripes similar in size would have been too much to ask. It had a large green and gray pom-pom on top.

"Is Slytherin ordinarily spelled this way?" Avery said, holding the cap towards them so they could read _GO SLYTHIRN_ embroidered in green on the gray bottom stripe.

Pansy glanced at Draco. "They tried, I suppose," she said, managing not to laugh.

Avery was not so successful in hiding his smirk.

"We were hoping you would wear it to our first Quidditch game, sir," Draco said. "It's on the 28th. Against Gryffindor."

"Always a big game," Avery said, turning to put the hat in his desk. Draco wondered if Avery would actually wear it. Draco wouldn't.

"A big rivalry, at least. I don't know if it's going to be a big game—Gryffindor's awful this year," Pansy said. "They graduated all three Chasers and both Beaters last year. Practically their whole team has never played together before."

"They've still got Potter," Draco said.

"Potter," Avery said. "Is he as good as I hear he is?"

"Well, Draco's never beaten him," Pansy said, with a sideways look in Draco's direction. "But other than that, I've always thought that _Quidditch Monthly_ tends to confuse Potter's fame with his Quidditch skills."

"Even so, Potter didn't make it onto the Gryffindor team as a first year on fame alone," Avery said. "Wasn't he the—"

"—youngest player to make a House team in a hundred years. Yes." Avery had no idea how many times Draco had heard that line. Every time Draco mentioned that he played Quidditch for Hogwarts, someone inevitably brought that up. "And he's not bad. But I don't think he should be the main focus of our strategy," Draco said, staring at Pansy.

She took her cue. "Professor Avery, you were a Chaser for Slytherin when you were here, right?"

"Yes," he said. "I was a reserve my second year and a starter third through seventh."

Not many players started for Slytherin as third years at any position other than Seeker. They didn't tend to hold up well with Slytherin's physical playing style. "Well, sir," he said, "I was wondering if you wouldn't mind taking a look at our Chasers and seeing if you have any suggestions for them. Professor Snape helps us with administrative difficulties"—such as taking practice time away from Gryffindor as often as possible—"but I'm sure he wouldn't object to us gaining the expertise a professional Chaser could offer."

"Would you please, Professor?" Pansy said. "It would really mean a lot to our Chasers."

"I'm sure it would," Avery said. "When do you practice?"

Pansy smiled. She was really very pretty when she smiled.

"Tuesdays and Thursdays at eight and Mondays and Fridays at seven," Draco said.

"Would Thursday work?"

"Thursday would be perfect," Pansy said.

Avery smiled back at her. "I'll look forward to it."

"Me too," Pansy said.

"Professor Avery," Draco said, "while we're here, Pansy and I were wondering what you could tell us about professional Quidditch. We're both on the House team—she's the Keeper and I'm the Seeker and Captain—and even though I'm not sure that either of us definitely wants to pursue Quidditch as a career, we want to keep our options open."

"Of course," Avery said.

"So, could you tell us how you got into pro Quidditch?" Pansy said.

"Well, recruiters for British and Scottish teams typically make it to the last two or three games of the season to look at older students, but they aren't allowed to approach students until after the last game of their seventh year season—Dumbledore's rule, to keep the pressure down, you see."

"How many students get recruited each year?" Pansy said.

"More than you might think. Hogwarts is a big feeder school for the British and Irish League. The school does a pretty good job of preparing you for pro Quidditch. You don't hear about many of the Hogwarts grads—Hogwarts hasn't graduated many big-name Seekers recently—but at least one Slytherin went pro after graduation each of the seven years I was here."

"How well does it pay to be a—"

"Professor Avery," McGonagall's head said from the fire, "I need to speak with you, immediately, in my office."

Pansy nearly shrieked; only Draco's hand on her arm steadied her.

"Can it wait a few minutes, Professor McGonagall?" Avery said, gesturing at Draco and Pansy. "I'd like to finish our discussion, if I could."

"It can't wait, Professor," she said. "Now, if you would." Her head disappeared from the flames.

Avery stood up. "Sorry about that, Mr. Malfoy, Miss Parkinson. I would love to finish our talk some other time, but if you'll wait just a minute…" He rummaged around in his desk drawers and pulled out a haphazard stack of papers. "Here are some pamphlets that can tell you more about the recruiting process and professional Quidditch in general. Give them back whenever you're finished with them, no hurry. I'm sorry, once again, to have to cut our discussion short, but, if you'll excuse me, I have to go."

"Excuse me, Professor, but would you mind if we stayed here to take a look at these?" Draco said. "If we take them back to the Common Room, the entire place will probably jump on us trying to look at them—"

"You know how the lower years are when the Gryffindor match is coming up," Pansy said. "They see the word Quidditch, they go crazy."

"And we'd really like to take a look at these in a place where we can concentrate on them fully," Draco finished.

Avery was looking between them like there was something he should be realizing and wasn't, but he was also itching to leave and it showed, so he said, "Fine. Just lock the door when you leave."

"We won't be too long," Pansy said to his retreating back, and shut the door. "What was that about?" she said. "Stay here and read the pamphlets? Draco, what are you—"

He unknotted his tie and began to unbutton his shirt.

Pansy laughed. "Here?"

Draco smirked and pushed her back against the desk.

-

A day like this could not have happened to anyone but her. Ginny had forgotten to set her alarm clock the night before, and had overslept, which wouldn't have been such a big deal if Olivia Wright, Regan Williams, and Julie Hughes, the other three girls in Ginny's year, hadn't barricaded off the bathroom in preparation for their first DADA class with Professor Avery—"Cal," they'd corrected her, "his name is Cal"—and they didn't finish until halfway through breakfast, by which time Ginny was starving and frustrated, and then there wasn't any hot water left and the sinks were clogged. And there wasn't any bacon at breakfast and the toast was cold, and she requested fresh toast but breakfast ended before it arrived but she felt bad leaving because she knew it would upset the house elves if nobody ate the hot toast, so she waited until it came and she was already late for the first class of the year.

She hurried to the DADA room, only to find that nobody was there, and when she checked the schedule she learned that the DADA classes were in a different room on the opposite side of the castle entirely, and she started to hurry towards it, and that was when she ran into Peeves, who'd thought it would be funny to drop a chandelier from the ceiling just in front of her, and she threw up her arm to protect her face and got little shards of glass all in her arm, and she had to spend all morning in the infirmary while Madam Pomfrey removed each individual piece of glass with a pair of tweezers, because nobody had ever bothered to invent a spell to remove thousands of tiny, sharp objects from a person's skin. Ginny was thinking about creating that spell because she never wanted to spend another morning like that again, or maybe she should just kill Peeves instead. It was hard to decide which would be of greater service to wizardkind.

And now she had to go to Professor Avery and explain to him why she had missed the first day of his class. Maybe it would be easier if she just said she'd overslept.

Ginny knocked on Professor Avery's door.

No answer.

She waited a few moments then knocked again.

Still no answer, but she heard a muffled sound, like a cough.

"Professor Avery?" she said.

He didn't say anything, but she heard the muffled coughing sound again. What if he was choking, and he was trying to get to the door, and he couldn't breathe?

She jiggled the doorknob; it was unlocked. "Professor?" she said one more time for good measure, and opened the door.

"Oh! Professor! I didn't know you—I'm sorry, I—"

Professor Avery wouldn't be laughing in this situation, would he? Ginny turned back around. She had barely glanced in the office before, but Draco Malfoy's hair and Pansy Parkinson's bemused chuckle were hard to miss.

"Don't you ever knock, Weasley?" Pansy said. They both sat up on the desk.

"I did." Ginny's eyes were anywhere but on them. The ceiling, for instance, was looking better every second she stared at it. "Apparently you didn't hear me."

"Hmm," Pansy said. "I wonder how we could have missed it."

Malfoy's arm snaked around Pansy's shoulders. Ginny looked away again, but not in time to miss his grin. "I don't know, Pansy." He was stroking her hair now. How could they be so utterly self-assured when she'd just walked in on them, and she'd never needed to see that much of either of them, but it was like visiting St. Mungo's and staring at all of the patients with third arms and elephants' trunks for noses: you were horrified but you couldn't stop yourself from looking.

"I think maybe you were, um, a little occupied, and I'll just be leaving now, but what are you doing in Professor Avery's office anyway?"

"I thought it was fairly obvious, Weasley," Pansy said. "Or hasn't your mother talked to you about the birds and the bees?"

"That's not what I meant," Ginny snapped, uncomfortably aware of her inevitable blush and of Malfoy's fingers tickling down Pansy's side. "But speaking of that, do you two ever do anything _but_ that? You're like rabbits or something."

"No, Weasley," Malfoy said patiently, "that would be your parents."

"Oh, shut it, Malfoy. You know what? I really don't care why you're doing it on Avery's desk. You can just go ahead and continue."

"How thoughtful of you," Pansy said.

Malfoy rolled on top of her on the desk as Ginny shut the door.

-

It was at least one in the morning, they were the last two people in the common room, and Hermione would still not lay off. "I think we need to at least offer Hagrid our condolences!"

"I never met the thing!"

"That doesn't matter, Ron. If one of your brothers had gotten hit by a truck, wouldn't you want people to offer their condolences?"

Ron considered. "Unless it was Percy. Then I'd send the driver a thank you letter."

"Ron!"

"It doesn't matter, anyway. My brothers know how to cross the street."

"Yes, well, they're not giants."

"Exactly!"

"Just because Grawp wasn't human doesn't mean you shouldn't feel sorry that he's dead."

"I shouldn't? He almost killed you!"

They heard a thump outside the entrance to the common room. "What was that?" Hermione said.

Ron opened the door to find Harry knocked out on the floor. "He must've been sleepwalking," Ron said. "He did it all the time at Grimmauld Place."

"Oh," Hermione said, grabbing one of Harry's arms and helping Ron drag him though the portrait hole. "So you really don't think we should tell Hagrid we're sorry his brother died."

"I never said that."

"Oh, so your prejudice against nonhumans was just a show, was it?"

"What?"

"You're prejudiced against nonhumans. Admit it."

"Only the ones who want to kill humans!"

"You can't make that big of a distinction. There are lots of very worthy creatures who dislike humans."

"Oh, because Aragog and his colony of giant tarantulas are obviously in need of magical rights."

"This isn't about giant tarantulas. It's about giants. Hagrid is our friend."

Ron looked sullen. "I know that."

"And he'd at least pretend to be sad even if Percy died."

"Percy never tried to kill you."

"Even if he had, Hagrid would still offer his condolences to your family."

"Hagrid wouldn't offer his condolences. He'd say he was sorry."

"That's the same thing. Are you trying to suggest that Hagrid isn't as intelligent as a full human, Ron Weasley, because that is just—"

"That's not—oh look, Harry's waking up!"

"I don't care. Ron, you are just—"

"Hermione?" Harry said groggily. "What am I doing on the floor?"

Hermione glanced wildly at Ron.

"You feel asleep on the couch," Ron decided. "You must have rolled off."

"Oh," Harry said. "Okay."

"Harry," Hermione began, "am I justified in suggesting that Ron is prejudiced against nonhumans?"

Harry looked wildly from one to the other. "I think I'm going to go back to sleep," he declared, and did.

"Me too," Ron said quickly, and escaped to the dormitory before Hermione could stop him. He dragged Harry all the way.


	5. Inheritance

**Title:** Diagon Burning (5/20)

**Author name:** 1 Eyed Jack

**Author email:** Drama

**Sub Category:** Action/Adventure

**Keywords:** Harry Ron Hermione Draco Pansy

**Rating:** R

**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP

**Summary:** Harry Potter is one of the few who remain skeptical when Lucius Malfoy emerges from Azkaban with a full pardon and a plan to start an evil-fighting organization. Exposing Malfoy as a fraud won't be easy amid lies, fights, and hidden agendas. One motorway accident, two definitions for SPEW, three levels of Ministry alert, and lots of four-nication. **_Chapter 5-Inheritance:_** Draco pursues his teaching career, Pansy engages in internal monologue, Harry coaches Quidditch, and the Order finally makes a move. Sort of.

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Some canon information in this chapter comes from the Lexicon.

**Author notes:** Special thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far as well as to emerald123, Oli and co., and Viola for the betas, and indarae and blythely for catching errors on LiveJournal. Naodrith and Alissa Raboin also looked over earlier versions of the fic.

**Diagon Burning**

Chapter 5:  
Inheritance

"Creevey, Creevey, over here!"

Colin and Dennis wobbled over. That, at least, was progress. Dennis had actually fallen off his broom earlier this week. Not while he was playing. Not while he was flying quickly, even. They'd just been ambling through the air, barely moving while Harry discussed team strategy, and the kid had fallen right off. Harry had to dive and catch him before he faceplanted in the mud.

"Captain Potter, sir?" Dennis squeaked.

"For the love of God, Dennis, it's Harry! His name is Harry!" Colin whacked him on the head with his Beater's bat.

"Oww!" Dennis said. "I can't call him Harry, he's our Captain!"

"Dennis, will you—"

"Um," Harry said, "can you two hold off for a few minutes?"

The shut up instantly and faced him, eyes wide. Harry half expected them to bow or something.

"I need to talk to you two about your Beating style," Harry began, flying slowly so that Dennis wouldn't have trouble keeping up. Dennis slipped on his broom. On second thought, maybe it would be better if they just hovered in the air. Harry stopped moving. "You know why I chose you two, don't you?"

"Ooo! I know!" Dennis said.

"Dennis, shut up!"

"Because you worked so well together during tryouts," Harry said loudly. It was why siblings were so often selected as Beaters: they tended to have similar playing styles and to understand each other's movements. Twins were best, but the only set of twins in Gryffindor at the moment were first year girls, and Harry wasn't about to give two giggling eleven year olds Beaters' bats and rely on them to defend his team. And the Creevey brothers had been good in tryouts. What they'd lacked in instinct Harry had figured they could make up for with practice. He hadn't realized that the level of cooperation they'd displayed in tryouts was a rare truce.

They looked up at him, wide eyes identical. "We did?" Colin said.

"Yes." Harry said, but to see them in every practice since, nobody would know it. "You played like you'd been practicing together for ages."

Dennis blinked. "We're Muggle-born," he said.

"Yes, I know, which is what made it so remarkable," Harry said. "You were in the right positions to back each other up, you trusted each other to take care of Bludgers. You were everything we need out of our Beaters. But lately you've been playing like you don't even know each other." Or rather, like they knew each other too well and wanted nothing to do with each other.

The Creeveys gaped at him. Harry realized they weren't going to help him out with this. "You need to learn to cooperate if you're going to be successful Beaters," he elaborated. "You can't play such an important position if you're going to be fighting all the time."

They still weren't saying anything. "Can you at least give it a try?" Harry said.

"Yes, sir!" Dennis said. He started to raise his hand to his forehead—he was actually going to salute—but Colin slapped it down.

"I'll try, Harry," Colin said.

Harry had a feeling that they were a lost cause already, but he didn't think talking to them again would be much help. 

He sent them back into practice and let loose one of the Bludgers. He didn't really trust the Creeveys with two at the moment. After a few minutes he saw the problem: it wasn't both brothers fighting each other, it was Colin trying to outshine Dennis, flying in front of him to whack a Bludger that Dennis obviously had under control, telling Dennis that he'd hit the Bludger in the wrong direction when Dennis had just made a clever move. It wasn't both brothers Harry needed to talk to, it was Colin.

But Harry just didn't have that kind of energy. One attempt to fix the situation was enough for the day. He called the whole team in to end the practice before things could get any worse. He'd talk to Colin tomorrow, or at the next practice, or maybe never, as long as it wasn't today.

The whole team was standing around him on the ground: Ron, at Keeper, who still hadn't quite gained the confidence he needed to grow into the position; Ginny, Jack Sloper, and Andrew Kirke, the Chasters, who had been Seeker and Beaters respectively during Umbridge's Quidditch ban last year; and of course the Creevey brothers. Colin had just jabbed Dennis in the side. Harry ignored them.

"Not too bad of a practice, guys," Harry said. "We're still learning how to play together, but we're doing really well for only the third day of practice." Harry avoided looking at the Creeveys as he said this. Colin had just poked Dennis again, and Dennis looked like he wanted to blubber. "If we keep working hard, we shouldn't have any problems. See you out here tomorrow at eight."

Everyone filed into the locker room and began to strip off their Quidditch gear. Before she headed to the girls' showers, though, Ginny touched his arm and said, "Harry, can I talk to you for a minute?"

Harry nodded. "Sure."

"Outside, maybe?"

They walked over to the door, but it had begun to rain. Ginny wrinkled her nose. "Maybe not outside."

"Do you want to go somewhere more private, Ginny?" Harry asked.

Ginny looked around. Harry followed her gaze. The main area of the locker room was clear. It was quiet except for the trickling of water from the showers. "Here is fine," she said.

Harry put his hands in his pockets and waited.

"Sloper and Kirke aren't passing me the Quaffle," she said finally. "I don't know if they're doing it on purpose, and I wouldn't think anything of it if it were only some of the time, since they're best friends and all, and they played Beaters together last year—but, Harry, it's all the time. The only time I got the Quaffle all practice was when one of the Creeveys hit a Bludger towards them by mistake and they dropped the ball. I didn't want to say anything to them since I'm not sure that they know they're doing it, but there's really no point in having me at Chaser if they're not going to pass to me." Ginny looked up at Harry.

"I didn't see anything, but that's because I wasn't watching you as much as the Beaters," Harry said. "But—"

"I don't think Colin means to be as mean to Dennis as he is," Ginny said. "Older brothers just do that sometimes."

Harry imagined Ginny knew exactly what older brothers could be like. "They seemed a little better after I talked to them," he said, lying through his teeth. "But, like I said, I wasn't really concentrating on what was going on with you and Sloper and Kirke, so I'd like to watch what happens in practice tomorrow before I say anything to them, if you don't mind, so I can base what I tell them on my own eyes rather than on what you told me."

"That's fine," Ginny said.

"Good. I'll see you at practice tomorrow." Harry began to pick up his gear.

Ginny touched his shoulder. "Um, actually, one more thing." She sounded nervous. "Listen, I know you moved me to Chaser this year because you think I play better there, and because you're back at Seeker, of course, and you're a better Seeker than I am but I really don't think I'm very good at Chaser, and I was just wondering what you thought."

"I wouldn't have moved you to Chaser if I didn't think you would be good there," Harry said. "And I'm the better Seeker—I'm not trying to be egotistical, you just said it yourself. I moved you to Chaser because there is no point to having a good Quidditch player as a reserve when you could be getting field time. Unless you'd rather be a reserve? Because I'm sure there are a dozen players who'd love to have your spot."

"No," Ginny said. "I don't think that would solve anything."

"What do you want to do, then?"

"I was thinking, maybe, could you help me a little after practice? With strategy, mostly, and applying it? Because I think that's where I need the most help, because I can see plays in my mind when you describe them or block them out, but when I go to try them myself I get confused and I could probably use your help."

"Okay," Harry said. "I'd be happy to help you."

"Really? Could we start now?"

"Yeah, that'd be—no, I have detention," Harry said. Detention with Snape, for having "purposefully disrupted" Potions class. Harry had been walking in front of Malfoy and Malfoy had tripped him from behind and Harry's books had gone flying as he fell. He'd had to spend the first five minutes of class cleaning up his broken inkbottle without magic, because, "the carefully controlled environment of a Potions classroom cannot tolerate magical interference until after we are finished brewing, Potter," and then the bastard had given him a detention to make it sound like Harry had spilled the ink on purpose.

Ginny's face fell, so Harry said quickly, "But would tomorrow be okay? After practice, for, say, half an hour?"

"That'd be great," Ginny said. "Thanks, Harry."

"No problem." He collected the rest of his Quidditch gear and deposited it in his locker.

-

The fourth day of NEWT potions, Snape didn't show and Draco Malfoy decided to teach the class. 

Harry was about to say something to Hermione about leaving when Malfoy walked to the front of the room, slammed an enormous book on Snape's desk, and turned around to write on the chalkboard. Pansy Parkinson laughed, and Theodore Nott smirked, which was as much as Harry had ever seen him do.

Hermione placed a hand on Harry's arm. "Ignore him," she whispered. "Malfoy's just doing it to annoy us. Here," she flipped open _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6_, "let's do our Charms homework."

Harry did not want to do his Charms homework. But he reached down and grabbed his book out of his satchel. Malfoy cleared his throat. When Harry got back up to the level of his desk, he was able to see what Malfoy had written.

_BLOOD  
_

"Purity," Malfoy began, "is something of great importance to potion making. For example, the right quality and mixture of ingredients is essential to a successful potion—a fact that all of us, except Potter, are well acquainted with."

Harry got a parchment and quill out of his bag. He wrote the date and his name across the top of the parchment. Hermione was already on question three.

"A successful wizard is much like a successful potion. Purity is essential." Malfoy looked at Harry and Hermione. He gave them a nasty smile. "I'm so glad you're taking notes, class."

Hermione put down her quill, folded her hands and stared at Malfoy. Harry rewrote over the date and his name. He drew a number one and circled it, tried to read the first question and went back to rewriting his name.

"Just as a potion requires purity of ingredients, a wizard requires purity of what?"

Pansy Parkinson smiled and pointed at the board.

"That's right, Pansy," Malfoy said, leafing through the tome in front of him. "A wizard requires purity of blood. Athough it had been considered truth for thousands of years, the importance of racial purity was only proven a scientific reality in this century." Malfoy started to walk around the classroom. Harry realized he had been holding his quill at the top of the H in his name for the last thirty seconds. He had driven a hole in the parchment.

"Granger, you like to read," Malfoy sneered.

"I like to read, Malfoy," Hermione said. She mirrored his condescending tone almost perfectly.

"Have you read anything by Grindelwald, then?"

Hermione stared at him. "Yes."

Malfoy raised his eyebrows. "Really? Which ones?"

"All of them."

Malfoy smiled. "I found his _On Wizarding Supremacy in the Modern Age_ particularly enlightening."

Hermione crossed her arms. "I found it particularly disgusting."

"Really, Granger. I'm surprised. All of Grindelwald's experiments were conducted under the most scientific conditions," Malfoy said, dropping his book on their desk and leaning up against it. He looked at Harry. "For those of us who are not familiar with the experiment, perhaps I should enlighten you." 

Harry threw down his quill and stared at Malfoy. 

Malfoy handed it back to him. "You may want to continue your notes." He glanced at Harry's parchment upside down. "Or were you just practicing your autograph?" When Harry didn't take the quill, Malfoy calmly set it down on the desk. "Grindelwald compared the estimated brain mass of five wizards with empirically collected data from nearly 150 Muggles. As you must see, the volume and scope of the experiment ensures its accuracy."

"The estimated brain mass of five wizards, Malfoy?" Hermione laughed sarcastically. "That sounds _so_ scientific. Really."

"Grindelwald proved that the disparity between wizards and Muggles—always suspected—was biologically quantifiable."

"You're just incredibly stupid to believe any of that rubbish." Hermione said.

"Actually, Granger, Grindelwald proved that you are the one who is stupid. In his comparisons, he discovered that the Muggle brain is actually smaller than the Wizarding one by a substantial fraction, proving that we—I mean I—am biologically superior. Do you remember the fraction, Granger?" 

Hermione stared at him, but didn't speak.

"For once, Granger doesn't know the answer," Malfoy said. "Let me find the exact statistic. I wouldn't want to misinform the class." He paged through his book. "Here it is: _'The Muggle brain is 4/5 the size of its Wizarding counterpart'_." He looked directly at Hermione. "You are 4/5 as human. Though, as a Mudblood, I wouldn't suppose you'd be biologically capable of recognizing the importance or full meaning of this discovery."

Harry slammed the cover of Malfoy's book down on his hand. Malfoy blinked. "Do you have a question, Mr. Potter?"

Hermione was already packing her books. She grabbed Harry's satchel for him. 

Harry stood up. He met Malfoy eye-to-eye. Malfoy eye-to-eye. "I'd curse you right now if you were worth the breath."

Pansy Parkinson started to laugh.

Malfoy's smile pulled his lips back over his gums. "Half-blood," he spat.

-

In 1604, when Stanislaus Parkinson made Hattie Coriander his wife, he must have been temporarily out of his wits. Rape was one thing and illicit affairs were slightly less acceptable, but no wizard of a certain social standing ever dreamed of marrying a Muggle. As a species, the Parkinsons were not particularly romantic. Pragmatism was such a well-established family trait Pansy supposed it had to have been part of the bloodline as far back as 1604. She scoffed at the notion that Stanislaus married Hattie the Muggle for love. Hattie must have had nice tits, or a really big fucking gigantic house in the country. Pansy hoped it was both, because the Parkinsons' drop in social standing was sudden, speedy, and supreme. 

Although the inferior character of the children born from a wizard-Mudblood match was well known as far back as 1604, it was not scientifically established until Grindelwald's experiments at the University of Vienna proved pureblood supremacy in the early twentieth century. In his masterwork, _On Wizarding Supremacy in the Modern Age_, which Pansy had never read although she owned two copies, Grindelwald gave these descendents of mixed marriages a name: _neuesbluten_—newbloods. The detrimental influence of the Muggle blood was so strong, he discovered, it took seven generations for members of the tainted family to regain their full potency as pureblooded wizards.

Pansy had always wondered if her father named her Pansabelle because he thought it sounded aristocratic, pureblooded.

"It really is regretfully bourgeois," Draco had told her once.

"And the fact you call your mother Mummy is bourgeois too." 

He buried his face in her stomach. "No it isn't. It's really posh."

"I call my mother Mother."

"Then you don't love her and there's nothing more bourgeois than a dysfunctional family." He placed his chin between her breasts, considering. "I will never call you Pansabelle."

She looked at him. "I never call me Pansabelle, either."

It took seven generations for Hattie Coriander's blood taint to iron itself out. Cheswick Parkinson was the sixth, Pansabelle the seventh. If her father had been born in her place, it would have been socially acceptable for him to be independently wealthy. As it was, Newbloods, like Mudbloods and Muggles, were expected to work. They fleshed out the bourgeois. 

Her father often told her she was lucky, because if she had been born a generation earlier, Draco wouldn't even look at her. Sometimes she wondered if he really believed that a Malfoy's attention was lucky, or if he was just saying that because he was supposed to.

She knew as well as her father that Draco wouldn't stoop to touch a newblood. The seventh generation allowed social mobility.

She also knew, because her father had slipped a clipping from a little-read academic journal called _European Magical History_ inside the copy of _On Wizarding Supremacy in the Modern Age_ he had given her, that Grindelwald had been addicted to opium and incapable of scientifically proving anything. 

-

"How was Advanced Potions?" Ron asked as Harry and Hermione slammed their textbooks down on the dinner table. "My free period was great."

They both gave him dirty stares. "Well, Snape didn't give Harry detention," Hermione offered after a long silence.

"That's because Snape didn't teach the class." Harry sat down beside her. "Where's the steak and kidney pie?" 

Ron yanked the dish away from Neville and pushed it to Harry. "Where was he?" He dropped his voice, "Order business?"

Harry shrugged. "Dunno. I would if the Order told us anything."

"Draco Bloody Malfoy taught the class," Hermione said, driving her fork into the pile of mashed potatoes. "He gave a lecture—if you can call it that—on pureblood supremacy."

"Git," Ron said through a mouthful of roast. "Did you punch him, Harry?"

Hermione looked shocked. "He most certainly did not. Harry's on Ministry probation. That fight the first night was bad enough."

"I could have," Harry said.

"You should have," Ron amended.

"I didn't really feel like it," Harry replied. "He was really trying to piss me off and he was just being kind of annoying."

Hermione sat down her fork. "So you're saying he hadn't earned a punch."

"Frankly, I don't give a damn what racist crap Malfoy believes." Harry jabbed the steak and kidney pie with his fork. "And I'm not going to waste any punches to make him think I care."

"You did storm out of the classroom, Harry," Hermione pointed out after a slight pause.

Harry flushed. "Yeah, well, I would have punched him if I stayed."

-

"I have some bad news," Harry told the team at the beginning of practice on Friday night. "The Slytherins have taken up every evening practice time for the next three weeks. Snape convinced Avery that with the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin as big as it is, there was no way we could practice on the same night without one team cheating and showing up early to watch the other team's practice." If he had been there, Lupin would have said that this was the most legitimate complaint Slytherin had ever lodged against Gryffindor; to Harry, it just rankled.

"Those slimy snakes took all our practice time? How could Avery let them do that?"

"He believed Snape? We'd not the ones who'd cheat, they are!"

"How can we play Slytherin if we don't get to practice for the next three weeks? We have to talk to Avery, he'll—"

"Hold on a second," Harry said. "I've already talked to Avery."

"Well?" Kirke said. "What'd he say?"

"We have a solution." Harry hesitated under their stares. "We're going to practice."

"That's right, show those Slytherins what happens when they mess with Gryffindor!" Colin said.

Harry took a deep breath. "But it's going to have to be morning practice."

"Morning practice?"

"We can't get up early in the mornings to practice!"

"It's a Slytherin plot to take away our sleep!"

"So we go to bed an hour earlier each night," Harry said. "Look, I know it sucks, and I want to beat up the Slytherins just as much as the rest of you, but we need to save it for the game. They're just trying to get at us in any way they can, and we can't let them do it."

"Why didn't you fight this harder?" Colin, who was obviously feeling belligerent today, wanted to know.

"For one, because Hermione talked me out of it. But she had a really good point!" he yelled before they could even start. "She said that, by not arguing, we can use this as a bargaining chip with Avery if Slytherin tries anything ridiculous later on. And she's right, and I'm not going to change my mind on this, so don't argue with me. What Slytherin's really trying to do here isn't take away our practice time. They want us to fight and fall apart as a team, and if we get into a big argument about this, Slytherin will have gotten what they want. But if we treat this as a challenge and use it to make us stronger, then they fail. That's what we all want, isn't it? To see Slytherin lose?" On that count, at least, the team seemed to agree. "Well, then, let's practice!"

But Harry could see that everyone was having trouble keeping their minds on practice and off of beating up the next Slytherin they saw. Harry was right there with them, but that wouldn't help them win. Even though emotional detachment had never been quite his forte, and it was a bit hypocritical of him to preach it, at the end of practice he decided he needed to give it a try.

"We're letting the Slytherins get to us," he told the team. "We're playing angry, and that isn't helping us play well. We need to concentrate on the game, not on how Slytherin's cheating. We're letting them control our emotions. If we're this bad three weeks before the game, what are we going to be like on game day?"

No one could contradict him, but Colin Creevey, who today was too sharp by half, said, "As if they aren't getting to you, too."

Harry made himself count to ten before saying anything. "I never said they weren't. And I'm not trying to say that I'm better at controlling the urge to bash their brains in than the rest of you, because obviously I'm not. All I'm saying is that all of us, myself included, need to take a step back from how much we hate Slytherins' guts and remember that this is a Quidditch game where the better team, not the team that cheats the best, will win. But if we want to be the better team, we have to take our minds off of Slytherin and actually start playing like a team. Right now, the only thing that's keeping us together is that we all hate Slytherin. Hatred won't win games. Teamwork will."

Harry dismissed the team to the showers. As he headed into the locker room, pulling off his armpads, Harry ran over his speech in his head. He hoped he sounded convincing, but even if the team stopped fighting and started playing together, he doubted there was much hope. Last night he'd seen a few minutes of the Slytherin practice from a hallway window on his way back to Gryffindor Tower after practice. They flew in perfect synchronization. Slytherin wasn't just going to give Gryffindor trouble. The game was going to be a nightmare. Gryffindor's only hope for survival was for Harry to catch the Snitch, and soon.

"Harry?" Ginny stood beside him. She looked questioningly look at his discarded armpads. "Can you still help me with—"

"Extra practice. Yes. Sorry, I was distracted," he said, pulling the armpads back on.

"It's okay," she said, and held the door open for him to go back outside. After a few seconds of silence, she said, "It's going to be okay, you know."

Harry started. "What is?"

"The game." She smiled a little. "We're going to be all right."

He wished he shared her optimism, but didn't want to discourage her by saying so. "Thanks for cleaning up the practice equipment for me the last couple of days. I would have been late for detention otherwise."

She looked at him oddly. "You had detention both nights?"

"I had it with Avery the first night for fighting with Malfoy, and Snape gave me another one for being in the halls after curfew. I tried to tell him that I was only out because I was coming back from detention, but he didn't care."

"That stinks."

"Yeah. And the worst part was, I'd just spent an hour and a half polishing every one of the school broomsticks by hand while listening to Malfoy talk about fucking Parkinson."

"I've got you beat. I walked in on them when I was putting away the Quidditch equipment last night."

"Again?"

Ginny nodded. "Fifth time in three weeks. And it's just as disgusting every time."

"Please tell me they weren't using the school broomsticks for anything."

"Why would they be—"

Because Malfoy had been using them to demonstrate very explicit sexual positions the other night, in what had been possibly the most disturbing evening of his life. "Never mind," Harry said quickly. "Let's go practice some passing." Thank goodness he had his Firebolt. After what he'd seen Malfoy do the night before last, he was never going to ride a school broomstick again.

-

By the middle of the month, Potions class hadn't improved, even with the correct teacher. Not that Harry had expected improvement; it was just that he hadn't anticipated Snape having this much stamina for hatred.

"What is the primary ingredient in the salve for treating third-degree dragon burns, Potter?"

Never mind that dragon burns were Medical Potions material, which Snape didn't even begin to cover until halfway through seventh year, "Five points from Gryffindor for negligence in homework preparation."

"But, sir," Hermione raised a hand, "I read the homework thoroughly and there was no mention of dragon burns whatsoever."

Snape blinked at her. "Mr. Malfoy."

"Yes, sir?"

"Did you read the homework?"

"Yes, sir."

"And was there a section on dragon burns?"

"Of course, sir." Malfoy smirked at Harry.

Snape looked dead at Hermione. "Five points from Gryffindor for outright lying."

Harry jumped out of his seat. "That was so bloody unfair—"

Snape held up a hand. "Careful, Potter. Your behavior in recent weeks has shown you to be incredibly unstable. You wouldn't want to force me to recommend expulsion, now, would you?"

Not that he hadn't recommended expulsion a hundred times before, Harry was sure. But he forced himself to hold it in and let Snape say, "You already have no marks for homework, Mr. Potter, but let's give you another question and see if you can redeem yourself a little in my esteem." He gave a very nasty smile. "Now, Mr. Potter, if you would, what is the final neutralizer added to the Rasputin's poison after it has been allowed to simmer?" 

"Rasputin's poison?" Harry repeated. He was at a loss.

"Yes, Mr. Potter, Rasputin's poison. It's nearly undetectable and it tastes like vodka. In fact, I informed you of the final neutralizer our first class when you nearly created it by mistake. In the highly unlikely case you've forgotten my lecture from that most unfortunate day, Rasputin's poison was also covered in last night's reading. Is that not correct, Mr. Malfoy?"

Unless Snape had assigned the entire two-year text for last night's homework, Harry doubted it, but Malfoy, wanker that he was, said, "Of course, Professor."

Snape turned back to Harry. "The answer now, Mr. Potter?"

Hermione was trying to whisper the answer to him without moving her mouth but he couldn't understand her. He began to tell Snape to fuck off, but before he could say it someone said, "Knotgrass," from the back of the room.

Everyone turned. Remus Lupin's head poked through the door of the classroom. "Isn't that the correct answer, Professor Snape?"

Snape looked like he wanted to growl.

"I thought so," Lupin said. "Would you mind if I borrowed Harry for a moment?"

Snape looked like he was torn between the agony of letting Harry do something he wanted to do and the joy of not having to see Harry's face for a few minutes. His expression reminded Harry of Uncle Vernon.

"It's important," Lupin said.

"Fine," Snape said shortly. "Leave, Potter."

Harry didn't waste any time shoving his Potions materials into his bookbag and exiting. As he was walking out of the room, Malfoy gave his best imitation of a wolf howl.

Snape smirked. "Five points to Slytherin," he said.

Lupin pretended not to notice. He held the door and eased it shut behind Harry.

"Lupin!" Harry said. "What are you doing here? Is it something with—"

"The Order, yes. But not right now. Snape's in the Order, too, so we couldn't hold the meeting just yet."

"So why did you pull me out of Potions, then?"

Lupin smiled. "You didn't really want to spend the rest of the period with that git, did you?" He leaned on his cane. "Fancy a walk around the lake?"

"Yeah, all right," Harry said. "When was the full moon?"

"Three nights ago," Lupin said. "You knew from the cane, right? I didn't used to like the cane, but I don't really think about it anymore. Comes with the job. Lupin seemed to be making more of an effort to tell Harry things than usual, and, with that thought, Harry's self-restraint evaporated.

"The Order's meeting tonight?" he said. "Why here?"

Lupin smiled slightly. Maybe his cut-to-the-chase tactics had been a little too hasty. "Isn't that obvious?"

"Just tell me."

"They've decided to let you in."

"What?"

"You're in the Order."

Harry blinked, his mouth falling open. "I am? Really?" He had the sudden urge to hug Lupin, but he collected himself. "I heard you talking to Mrs. Weasley that night, after I beat up Malfoy, and you said I should be in—"

"It wasn't me who decided to get you in," Lupin said. "It was Dumbledore."

"Dumbledore?" It made sense, though. It was all part of Dumbledore's giant guilt trip over having kept Harry in the dark all those years, even after he came to Hogwarts. Harry wondered vaguely how many more perks Sirius's death would give him.

"Yes," Lupin said, but didn't elaborate. They were walking through the doors near the lake, now. "Sirius didn't ever tell you he'd written a will, did he?"

Harry almost laughed. The answers to his unasked question were coming a lot quicker than he would have thought. "No. We didn't really discuss him dying, though. Didn't ever come up in our extensive time together."

"He left Grimmauld Place to you, Harry," said Lupin quietly. Harry could tell he was pretending not to notice his sarcasm. "And named me custodian until you graduate—at which time you can do whatever you see fit, kick me out if you like, I suppose."

"No. You can stay at Grimmauld Place, if you like," Harry said. "I don't mind. I'd like that, I think."

Lupin nodded. They walked in silence until they got to the lake's edge.

"Sirius didn't happen to mention me joining the Order in his will?" Harry asked.

"No," Lupin said, looking at him. "It was Dumbledore's decision."

"I guess it would be," Harry said, swallowing what he wanted to say about Sirius, because saying it wouldn't do any good. "It's nice outside," he said instead of anything important.

Lupin looked at him sideways. "Good day for flying."

"We had morning Quidditch practice."

"And how was it?"

"Terrible. Slytherin's going to pound us into the ground."

Lupin leaned on his cane. "So it goes."

-

"What the hell was the werewolf doing here?" Pansy snapped as she and Draco flopped down on a couch in the common room next to Crabbe and Goyle. Goyle was knitting what was either an afghan or a shapeless one-sided sweater and even more alarmingly, Crabbe's head was buried in a book. At least he was reading it upside down.

Pansy turned it right side up for him. She looked at the cover. "_The Gay Science_ by F. W. Nietzsche." Not for the first time, Draco felt mildly skittish about sharing a dormitory with Crabbe.

He decided to temporarily ignore it and start on the lesser of the two evils. "Why the recent knitting, Greg?"

"I find it calming," Goyle said calmly. "I no longer have violent impulses."

"They you're no longer my friend," Draco said.

Goyle ignored him. "You should take up a hobby, Draco, and get out some of that subconscious anger. How about origami?"

Crabbe grunted his agreement and turned _The Gay Science_ upside down again.

"Origami's for girls." Draco made a face. "So is knitting."

"I don't knit. Or make origami," Pansy declared.

"You should," Draco said.

"Can I be your friend if I knit you a hat?" Goyle asked.

"No." Draco stood up. "Come here, Pansy." She made a face at him but came over anyway, sticking her hands in his back pockets. "Get me parchment and a quill."

"No."

"Do it. I'm going to write my father about the werewolf."

-

Harry had been wondering all afternoon how he was going to know when and where the Order meeting was. Lupin hadn't mentioned anything specific about it, even when Harry abandoned sneakiness and tried to pump him for information. And that was just typical of the Order, trying to keep information from Harry for as long as possible. He wondered if actually being in the Order would change that.

The note appeared on his plate at dinner, tucked in an envelope addressed to "H. Potter":

_Room of Requirement, 7:30, Teakettle._

Harry stared at it for a few seconds before realizing that "teakettle" must be the password. He shoved the note in his pocket before Hermione or Ron noticed it. He didn't need to have hurried: they were so caught up in argument that their faces were just centimeters apart. He wanted to push their heads together so they would just kiss already. He considered breaking up the argument and asking them if they'd been invited to the Order meeting, but he hadn't seen notes on either of their plates, which meant that, unless they'd been told some other way, Hermione and Ron weren't invited. If Harry brought it up, they'd all only get into an argument, which was pointless since none of them knew what was going on with the Order, so Harry let them continue their current argument all the way through dinner and concentrated instead on enjoying his mutton. They could be amazingly oblivious sometimes. Whenever they were arguing, really, so closer to all the time.

Harry watched them argue up to the Common Room and through the door. "Aren't you coming through, too?" the Fat Lady wanted to know.

Harry shook his head violently and pantomimed shutting the portrait hole.

"There's no need to get all huffy about it," she grumbled. "Running off somewhere and you don't want your friends to know, are you? Meeting a young lady in the Astronomy Tower?"

"That's it exactly," Harry told her and left, choosing to ignore her encouraging yell of "Go get 'em, tiger!"

The door to the Room of Requirement was far less troublesome, docilely unlocking itself after Harry gave the password.

Nearly the entire Order was in the room, seated around a large, polished-wood table with Dumbledore at one end and Mad-Eye Moody at the other. Lupin was sitting next to Tonks, who was telling him how much she'd always loved canines. Snape was staring Lupin down from across the table. If Snape's bared teeth were any indication, he was redirecting all of his hatred for Sirius towards Lupin. There were lots of little conversations going on instead of a formal meeting. Dumbledore waved Harry over to an empty seat at his right, which Harry took and sat.

"We're still waiting on Kingsley Shacklebolt," Dumbledore said. "He owled earlier to say he might have a little trouble getting off work."

"Ah," Harry said.

"Excuse me," said the man to Harry's left, "but I'm Elijah Doge—Eli for short—and I don't think we've met before."

"Harry Potter," Harry said, shaking his hand.

"Makes perfect sense," Eli said. "Has anyone ever told you that you look exactly like your father?"

"Yes," Harry said, "I've heard it before," but that didn't stop him from smiling.

"Isn't that right, Emmeline?"

"A dead ringer," she agreed. "Except for the eyes. You have—"

"My mother's eyes," Harry finished for her.

"Isn't it remarkable, though, Eli? If it weren't for the eyes and the scar, I'd swear he was a sixteen-year-old James."

"Really, though, you do look just like him," Eli said.

"You knew him?" Harry said, a little suspicious now that he'd taken a better look at the man. "You look a little young to have been in the Order when he was."

"I wasn't in the Order till last year, but my dad—that's him, Elphias Doge, over there—he was. I was eight the last time I saw your parents—it couldn't have been long before you were born, because your mother was huge—"

"Your mother?" Dedalus Diggle appeared beside Harry. "Ah, Lily. You have—"

"Her eyes. I know." It was nice that so many people remembered his parents and said things to him, but really, he'd gotten the idea.

"And your father, James," Moody growled from the end of the table. "You look—"

"Just like him," Harry finished.

"You really do, though," said Hestia Jones. "I mean, really, you'd think—"

"Did you even know my parents?" Harry said incredulously.

"Well, I—" she hedged, but Kingsley Shacklebolt walked in the door just then and saved her from having to finish the sentence. Harry sank into the seat between Dumbledore and Eli Doge and prayed that Dumbledore would start the meeting soon.

"May I have everyone's attention?" Dumbledore said, standing up. "I would like to begin this meeting of the Order of the Phoenix. Although we ordinarily meet elsewhere, I have called this meeting here for a special reason: we are going to induct a new member.

"Harry Potter, would you please stand?"

Harry stood up, but something wasn't right about this.

"Raise your wand hand."

Harry did, but as he stood up, his eyes caught on Mr. Weasley's brilliant red hair. "Where's Ron? And Hermione? Aren't they supposed to be here, too?"

"Can it wait until after you're inducted?" Mrs. Weasley said.

"No," Harry said. "Ron and Hermione are supposed to be here, too, aren't they?"

A whisper ran through the room. Mrs. Weasley's voice rose above it. "I won't let Ron join until after he graduates. He's far too young."

"He's older than me!"

Mrs. Weasley's lips were tight, like there was something she wanted to say but couldn't. "It's my decision to make."

"Ron's old enough to be in the Order, and he's just as good at making decisions as Hermione and I are."

"It doesn't matter, Harry, we're his parents," Mr. Weasley said, finally coming to his wife's defense.

"I'm not joining without Ron and Hermione," Harry said.

"Harry," Lupin said quietly, "you shouldn't let what anyone else says or does affect this decision. You should decide based on yourself, not on Ron and Hermione."

Harry just stared at him, then turned to Dumbledore. "I'll join if you let Ron and Hermione in."

"We can't do that, Harry." Dumbledore looked older than ever.

"Then forget it. I'm not joining, either."

"Harry!' exclaimed half the room, but he didn't stop. He slammed the door behind him, walked around the corner, and kicked the wall.

"That was juvenile," Lupin said mildly from behind him.

"Kicking the wall or not joining the Order?"

Lupin considered. "Both, I suppose."

Harry looked him straight in the eye. "I had to do it."

Lupin didn't seem to have an answer for that.

Harry walked away.

When he got back to the Common Room, he saw that Ron and Hermione had fallen asleep on each other on one of the couches. They must have been waiting for him to come back. Hermione's head was on Ron's shoulder and Ron's head was tilted on top of hers. Ron was drooling. Harry almost woke them up but he didn't want to talk about the Order meeting. And anyway, it would be funny to see their reactions when they woke up in the morning and realized how they'd been sleeping. 

Harry went upstairs and fell asleep before he even took off his glasses.

-


	6. Much Ado About SPEW

**Title:** Diagon Burning (6/20)

**Author Name:** **1eyedjack**

**Rating:** R

**Summary:** Chapter 6: Draco and Pansy make a bet, Harry makes a supposition, the Gryffindor Quidditch team sucks and the chapter isn't over until the Fat Lady whines. Twice.

**DISCLAIMER:** JKR and her publishers own the characters. We just play with them. Canon information, as always, comes from the Lexicon.

**Author notes:** Huge thanks to reviewers and to **emerald123** and Oli and co. for the betas. **Naodrith** and Alissa Raboin looked over earlier versions of the fic. **Katja021** also provided invaluable expertise.

**Diagon Burning**

Chapter 6:  
Much Ado About SPEW

"Where were you last night?" Hermione whispered to Harry as he sat down to breakfast the next morning.

"Out," he said, reaching across her for the toast.

"Stop being evasive, Harry."

"I'm not."

"Being evasive? Yes, you are. Tell us where you were. Ron wants to know, too."

Half hiding behind the platter of sausages, Ron was pretending very obviously that he hadn't heard Hermione. "I'm looking forward to Herbology today, aren't you, Harry?" he said.

Hermione looked about ready to start shouting at him, so more to prevent an argument than anything else, Harry cut her off with, "I was at a meeting for the Order of the Phoenix."

Both of their jaws dropped. "The Order of the Phoenix?" Ron said.

"So that's why Lupin was here," Hermione said.

"Lupin was here?" Ron looked confused.

Hermione waved him quiet. "Let Harry talk."

"Why weren't we invited to the meeting?" Ron asked.

"I suspect it was your mother," Hermione said.

"Yes, but your mother isn't in the Order of the Phoenix, and you weren't invited either."

Hermione turned pink. "Why don't you let Harry talk now, Ron."

"So what's it like being a member of the Order of the Phoenix?"

"Shh, Ron, not so loud," Hermione scolded, although she too looked at Harry expectantly.

He spread some marmalade on his toast. "I didn't join."

They looked at each other. "What do you mean you didn't join?"

"It was a big load of wank." Harry took a bite of toast to avoid looking at either of them. "So I decided not to join."

The post flew in and the _Prophet_ dropped in front of Hermione. "But Harry," she was saying, "everyone is in the Order."

"Not everyone," he replied.

She looked at him, almost amused. "There's Lupin, Ron's parents—"

"Bill and Charlie," Ron added.

"Professor Dumbledore and—"

"What does the paper say?" Harry said loudly.

Hermione looked at him suspiciously as she unfolded the Prophet.

_DUMBLEDORE HARBORS WEREWOLF AT HOGWARTS,  
AN ANONYMOUS SOURCE CONFIRMS_

There was a black and white picture of Lupin, his lip curling in an uncharacteristic growl.

_"GRAMPIAN, SCOTLAND—The_ Prophet _received an alarming tip yesterday that this dangerous, delinquent werewolf was seen prowling the corridors of Hogwarts in the company of none other than the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter—"_ Hermione began.

Harry pushed his toast away. "I'm not hungry."

Ron picked up Harry's toast and took a bite. "How could those bastards know about Lupin being here? _I_ didn't even know about Lupin being here."

"Isn't it obvious?" Hermione rolled her eyes at him. "Lupin walked right in to NEWT Potions."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Snape." He turned to the staff table. Snape's customary seat next to Avery was empty. He grabbed the _Prophet._

"Harry, I don't think Snape—" Hermione began, but he was already gone.

-

Harry kicked Snape's office door open.

Snape didn't even look up from the pile of essays he was grading. "Fifteen points from Gryffindor, Potter, for unauthorized breaking and entering." He wrote a large, red D on the paper in front of him.

"What's this?" Harry slammed the _Prophet_ on top of Snape's essays. 

Snape set down his quill. "The newspaper, Potter, or can't you read?"

"Why the hell did you tell the _Daily Prophet_ Lupin was here?"

Snape seemed taken aback for an instant and then, nonsensically, he started to laugh. It was the first time Harry had ever seen any expression on Snape even approaching a smile and it was incredibly disconcerting. "You are more dense, Potter, than I had ever thought possible. In fact, you may beat your father in terms of sheer stupidity."

Harry's ears burned. "What does that have to do with you selling out Lupin?"

Snape smirked at him. "Let's think about this, shall we?"

"There's nothing to think about." Harry snapped.

"Typical." Snape's smirk approached the delighted. "I see I am going to have to walk you through this, Potter."

"There's nothing to walk through."

"On the contrary. What could I possibly gain by selling out Lupin?"

"Exactly what you gained by telling the entire school he was a werewolf three years ago," Harry said. "Nothing."

Snape shrugged. "I was saving innocent lives."

"Bullshit."

"Language, Potter," he said. "Since you are incapable of putting two and two together on your own, I see I have to spell it out. I'm so sorry to disappoint you, but I am not the _Prophet's_ anonymous source. I wish I had been. Your anger is really quite gratifying."

"You're lying."

"Potter, _think_," Snape snapped. "I am a member of the Order. Whatever my personal feelings towards Remus Lupin might be, I would not expose him and through that, the Order's ability to meet here."

"No one else saw him," Harry argued. "He didn't go anywhere but into NEWT Potions."

"And by doing so all but wrote that article himself."

"Because you saw him!"

Snape pushed the Prophet aside in exasperation. "Potter, have you ever thought about your classmates in NEWT Potions—and which of them would be more than delighted to cause trouble for you and Professor Dumbledore?"

At that moment, the door to Snape's office swung open and Draco Malfoy stuck his head in.

Harry suddenly felt very stupid.

"Oh, hello, Potter," Malfoy said cheerfully. "More Remedial Potions?" 

Harry grabbed the paper off of Snape's desk and brandished it in the general direction of Malfoy's head. "You'll need a remedial face if you don't keep out of my life, Malfoy. How's that?"

"Ten points from Gryffindor for a nauseatingly predictable insult, Potter," Snape declared. "Now what did you want, Mr. Malfoy?"

"I was just going to invite you to the first meeting of SPEW, sir," Malfoy said. "It's tonight at 7:30 in Professor Vector's classroom and we'd be honored if you attended." He looked at Harry. "You can come too, Potter. We're giving out free biscuits."

"Oh well, if there's biscuits, then I'll be there," Harry sneered.

"I will come if I finish my essays in time," Snape said, gesturing to the pile of papers on his desk.

Malfoy nodded. "All right." He looked from Snape to Harry. "I'll be going then. I didn't mean to interrupt."

"It's not you, but Potter who is the interruption," Snape hissed. "If you're quite through with your tantrum, Potter, I'd like to spend a few moments mentoring Mr. Malfoy." Snape nodded toward his door. "Goodbye."

Harry stormed out. He was halfway out the door when Malfoy imitated a wolf howl. Harry slammed it shut and kicked the wall outside. He stubbed his toe.

Harry fumed all the way through Herbology and Charms, although thankfully neither class was with Slytherin. He wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do with Malfoy, but he did know it involved death, pain, and a large quantity of sharp, shiny objects. He wished the Quidditch game were tonight so he didn't have to wait until Saturday to catch the Snitch first.

On his way to lunch, Harry saw that SPEW had set up a long table outside the Great Hall. Pansy Parkinson and Marietta the Ravenclaw snitch sat behind it, a large plate of biscuits between them. SPEW MEETING TONIGHT, read the sign next to Parkinson. SIGN UP AND GET FREE FREEDOM BISCUITS. The line stretched out onto the grounds. 

Disgusted, Harry sulked into the Great Hall and sat down with Dean and Ginny.

"Did you see the SPEW table?" she asked as he sat down beside her.

Harry made a face. "I'm not blind."

"When we came in, Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson were practically snogging on top of the biscuits," Ginny said. "I would say it was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen, but then again there was that time I saw them on the train and then that other time on Avery's desk." She shuddered.

"I hear they're supposed to be married. They're been betrothed since birth or something. It's scary, like the middle ages." Dean said. "Seamus heard it from Michael Corner who talks to Blaise Zabini."

"Malfoy does wear a ring," Ginny said.

"I think Michael Corner's full of rubbish," Harry said. Ginny smiled at him, and he remembered that she used to date Corner.

"With the way Malfoy's all over Parkinson," Ginny said, "I think he's going to use her and dump her. If they are betrothed he'll force someone else to marry her."

"Pass the steak and kidney pie," Harry said.

-

Hermione had stayed after class to ask Professor Flitwick a few questions about the magical matrix of the Confundus Charm. She was already hungry, but when she passed a group of second year Ravenclaws heading up from the Great Hall babbling excitedly about how gooey and delicious the new biscuits were, she really began to feel peckish. Rushing down the stairs to get to the Great Hall before the biscuits were gone, she discovered most of the school was late for lunch as well, waiting in a line that stretched from a table labeled SPEW out the front doors. The famous new biscuits were most likely the ones advertised prominently as consolation for joining SPEW. Hermione would not stoop that low for dessert.

As she sulked into the Great Hall, someone grabbed her shoulder. She turned around. Ron was licking chocolate off his fingers. "You have got to try these Freedom Biscuits, Hermione."

She looked at him incredulously. "And how did you get a Freedom Biscuit, Ron?"

"I joined SPEW."

"Oh, that was such a legitimately good idea, Ron," Hermione said. "Join SPEW? Good call, really."

"I'm infiltrating them from the inside," Ron replied.

"You, infiltrate?" Hermione snorted. "Because, of course, Malfoy would never suspect a thing."

"I can be stealthy," Ron grumbled.

Hermione didn't even deign to respond to that. She merely raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Well, maybe not stealthy. But isn't it a good idea to know what the enemy's up to? Shouldn't we keep a close eye on them?"

Ron had a point, but then something clicked into place. "This doesn't have anything to do with those biscuits, does it?" she asked sweetly. 

Ron backed off. "Biscuits? What biscuits?"

"Those new, delicious Freedom biscuits you were telling me about thirty seconds ago? The soft, chewy, wonderful chocolate chip biscuits?"

"No, not at all!" The driblet of drool sliding down Ron's chin spoke otherwise.

"I didn't think so," Hermione said.

"Don't you think it's a good idea, though? Keeping an eye on Malfoy?"

"Intellectually, yes," Hermione said, "but practically, not really."

"I'll make sure Malfoy's not creating evil plots and teaching people to torture Muggles and things like that."

"Malfoy can't do that anyway. Professor Vector wouldn't allow it."

"Professor Vector went to a pates," Ron said. "How do you know they didn't brainwash her?"

"It's P.A.T.E.S.—Protection Against Terrible Evil Seminar—and they didn't."

"You don't know that."

"Even if she were brainwashed, there are enough sensible people in SPEW that they won't fall for anything Malfoy might pull."

"Sensible people? In SPEW?"

"I think you just destroyed your own case," Hermione told him. "But it doesn't matter because Malfoy isn't going to do anything to far off center."

"Right, I forgot, because Malfoy's so big on pleasing the masses."

"In case you haven't noticed, Lucius Malfoy is, and Draco's nothing if not consistent with his father."

"Malfoys don't please the public, Hermione! They please Voldemort. And themselves."

"Malfoy has gone politically correct recently, Ron, or hadn't you noticed? Don't answer that question."

As they walked into the hall, Harry walked out with Ginny and Dean. When they passed, he grabbed Ron by the shoulder. "DA meeting tonight," he said. "Spread it around."

Hermione waited until Harry was well out of the hall before saying, "I'm sure that scheduling doesn't have anything to do with the first SPEW meeting being tonight."

"See, I got a biscuit and now I don't even have to go to the SPEW meeting," Ron said. "It all worked out."

Hermione sighed. "It's the principal of joining SPEW, Ron."

He looked mildly alarmed. "You're not going to tell Harry, are you?" 

-

As soon as Hermione finished eating, she marched right up to the sixth year boys' dormitory and banged on the door. "Ron joined SPEW," she told Harry without prelude.

It seemed to take the words a few moments to work their way through Harry's head. "SPEW? Ron?"

"He's just in it for the biscuits," Hermione added, "but I thought you should know. He says he's trying to infiltrate it from the inside, but really it's all about the biscuits."

Harry sat down on his bed. Hermione sat beside him. "He didn't want you to tell me, did he?" he said with a small smile.

"Well, no, but I figured you'd find out eventually, and better from me than from Parvati or Lavender when they see him at the biscuit table after they join, and you know they're going to join, because Malfoy's in charge."

"What does Malfoy being in charge have to do with Parvati and Lavender joining SPEW?"

"Nothing at all," Hermione said quickly. Except for the fact that they'd been obsessed with Malfoy since third year, disgustingly enough. "Look, don't get angry with Ron. I don't think he thought the whole thing through very clearly—you know how he is when he sees food, it's like everything else disappears from his brain, and the only thing he can think about is how to get it—"

"I'm not going to get mad at Ron," Harry said absently, shredding a piece of parchment. "I'll just add it to the list of things that suck. Nothing's going right anymore, you notice that? Lucius Malfoy's got everyone believing he's the savior of the bloody world, Malfoy's a git, the DA's not nearly as big as SPEW, even Ron's bought into the SPEW bullshit—"

"He hasn't," Hermione said. "The only thing he's bought into is free biscuits."

"—Sirius is dead, even the Quidditch team sucks this year!"

Hermione took advantage of his pause for breath. "The Quidditch team sucks?" 

"Sucks isn't even the word for it." Harry stood up. The shredded parchment fell off his lap onto the floor, except for a few pieces that stuck to his pants. "I don't even know a word to tell you how bad the team is. Bloody fucking awful. I'll put it this way: if each person on the squad could be their own individual team, we'd be great, we'd win the fucking Cup. It's just the whole being a team thing that's giving us problems."

"How so?"

Harry looked at her cockeyed. "All right, remember how the Slytherins took all the night practice times, and you told me not to argue it, we could use it to bargain with Avery later? Yeah, well, I shouldn't have listened to you, because ever since we went to morning practices the team's gone to shit." He paused, considering. "Actually, the team probably went to shit before that. The team was probably shit from the first day. The Creeveys won't stop fighting for a second, and they forget they're supposed to be Beaters—they almost got Ginny's head knocked off this morning—Sloper and Kirke won't pass Ginny the damned Quaffle, and Ron's so bloody nervous all the time, he can barely stay on his broom, let alone guard the goals!"

"Are you nervous about the game?" Hermione ventured.

"For me? No. Why should I be nervous about playing Malfoy? I've beaten him four times, and on Saturday I'm going to beat him a fifth." This was Harry at his most confident, and she usually wanted to throttle him when he got this cocky, but at the same time there was something dazzling about his self-assurance, like he could accomplish anything he wanted and so could you, if you believed the way he did.

Harry's smile faded. "When I think about the rest of the team, though, I start to get nervous. You know I love Gryffindor Quidditch more than anyone, but if I don't catch the Snitch fast, Slytherin's going to eat us for dinner."

"You've got to catch the Snitch quickly, then."

The dazzling grin was back. "I will."

-

Draco surveyed the room. A few Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws lingered around the edges, the curious ones who didn't want to hear about the meeting secondhand. From the numbers, it seemed that every single Slytherin had believed Pansy when she'd announced last night in the Common Room that anyone who did not attend would be caught and publicly ridiculed. Draco hadn't been present for the announcement and hadn't a clue what kind of public ridicule she had in mind, but the threat must have been effective.

Another glance around the room confirmed that not a single Gryffindor was present. Potter must have threatened his House with public ridicule if they showed up for the meeting. Since he was basing his assumption that there were no Gryffindors present on tie color, technically Potter might have sent in spies wearing another House's ties, but Draco doubted it. Potter just wasn't that clever.

People were still trickling in five minutes after the meeting had been scheduled to start. "How many more are there?" he asked Blaise Zabini.

He shrugged. "Want me to go find out?"

Of all the unnecessary questions. Draco fixed a withering stare on him, which he was intelligent enough to take as a yes, and he wandered over to Pansy, who was in charge of the door. "The Auto-Record Charm wore off after the three hundredth name," Blaise said when he returned, "and Pansy's having to take all the names down by hand. There are about twenty-five people left outside, mostly Hufflepuffs."

Draco considered telling her to close the door now and let the Hufflepuffs deal with it, but his father was always telling him he needed to learn patience. And he didn't want any angry Hufflepuffs giving SPEW a bad rep—his father certainly wouldn't be pleased if that happened. "Just tell Pansy to hurry up. We're already five minutes late."

Pansy nodded and flashed two fingers at him after Blaise relayed the message, hopefully meaning that she'd have everyone inside in two minutes.

Draco adjusted his tie—he'd adopted a blue and red one sporting the SPEW logo for the occasion—and watched Pansy until she waved at him. Even though the Arithmancy classroom was huge, the crowd could barely fit. And this was only the first meeting. If SPEW kept growing the way his father expected it to, Draco would have to ask Dumbledore if they could use the Great Hall. Even the Gryffindors would get the idea then.

Draco stepped onto the teaching platform at the front of the room. A hush fell over the crowd almost immediately. "Thank you," Draco said. "Welcome to the first meeting of the Society for the Prevention of Evil in the World."

-

Ron was surprised to find that last year's entire DA had come back, except for Marietta Edgecombe and Michael Corner—neither of whom he had expected to see, anyway. Even Cho Chang was there, sitting in the back next to one of her Ravenclaw friends. Harry didn't seem to notice her, but that might have been on account of all the new recruits. It seemed like all of Gryffindor House, from first to seventh year, had decided to attend. The walls of the Room of Requirement changed from white to red and gold to accommodate the new trend.

"Welcome to the DA," Harry said. "I decided to call this meeting so we can get the DA up and running again, and, well, let's just make sure we get everyone's name on the sign-up list to start, shall we?"

Ron was about to sneak away when Hermione grabbed his shoulder and forced a quill into his hand. "Form lines in front of me, Ron, and Harry," Hermione yelled.

Harry's line was the longest. Ron sighed. It was going to be a very long night.

-

Pansy walked up to Draco while he was refilling one of the biscuit trays and adjusting the advertising slogan that flashed above them. He had made it himself, modeling it after those "Potter stinks" badges he had charmed in fourth year. It flashed, in red lettering,

FREEDOM FROM FEAR  
FREEDOM FROM HATRED  
FREEDOM FROM EVIL  
FREEDOM BISCUITS

She touched him on the shoulder. "Marietta Edgecombe told me why none of the Gryffindors are here. She heard at dinner. They're at Potter's meeting."

"Potter's meeting?"

"Potter called a meeting of the DA. You know, Dumbledore's Army?"

"What a name. Potter might as well suck Dumbledore's cock."

"Draco, that was crude."

"Pansy, darling, you are crude."

"The only crude thing I've ever done was you, on Avery's desk."

"I want to screw you on Snape's."

"I'll screw you on Snape's desk if you can convince Potter to merge the DA and SPEW."

"Really?"

"You'll never persuade him, Draco."

"Watch me."

"And when you don't convince him, you have to do it wherever I pick."

"Where is that?"

"It's a surprise."

"Then no deal," Draco said. "I laid out my terms ahead of time."

She leaned close to him. "Potter's bed."

Draco smiled. 

Pansy looked at him. "You're so predictable." 

-

"Potter. I want to talk to you."

Instantly, Harry regretted having stayed late in the Room of Requirement tidying up alone. "How do you know where the Gryffindor Common Room is?"

Malfoy leaned against the Fat Lady. She made an indignant noise. "Just because some of us are ignorant about the location of other Houses' common rooms, doesn't mean—"

"Slytherin is in the dungeons across from the suit of armor with the rusty axe," Harry said, "in case you meant me."

He was gratified that Malfoy looked surprised.

"What do you want, anyway?" Harry tried his best to look down his nose at Malfoy. This was difficult, seeing as Malfoy was almost exactly the same height as he was. Harry hoped that he was a little taller. Being shorter than a ferret would not be okay.

"You're just coming back from the DA meeting, aren't you?"

Harry stared and closed his mouth. "No."

"Oh, come on, Potter, don't lie."

"I'm not—" but he stopped and said, "Why?"

"Why shouldn't you lie? Because it's not what Gryffindors do. Lying is a Slytherin thing, and you're no good at it."

"I'm a better liar than you think," Harry said irritably. "But that's not what I was asking. Why do you want to know if I'm going to a DA meeting—whatever that is," he added lamely.

"You're a horrible liar, Potter. Why would you even bother to lie about that? Even if I hadn't known about the DA since last year, it's not a secret society anymore. It's pointless to try and hide it from the school."

Harry clamped his mouth firmly shut. "What are you talking about, Malfoy?" He tried, unsuccessfully, to keep the surprise out of his voice.

Malfoy chuckled. "Didn't you know, Potter? The DA's gone public."

"What do you mean it's public?" Harry said. His stomach sank.

"Well, only in the sense that its name is posted in the Slytherin Common Room under 'Societies and Clubs that are Open to the Public.'"

"Public," Harry repeated.

"Yes, Potter, public. But I'm not here to debate the DA's status with you. I have a proposition to make." 

"I won't marry Pansy for you," Harry said, horrified. 

Malfoy stared. "Where on earth did you come up with that? If I was going to ask someone to marry Pansy for me, it certainly wouldn't be you. And even if I did ask you," he mused, "I doubt Pansy would have you."

Harry can say, "I don't care. I already said I wouldn't marry her for you. Pansy is ugly."

"Pansy is better than your Weasley and Granger. She is everything they are not: worth several hundred thousand galleons, capable of conversation, reasonably attractive, and devoted to me. Her family also owns a krup farm in Yorkshire, two townhouses in London and a cottage on Iziba."

"Parkinson is still horrible. I don't care how much land she owns."

"That's only because you don't have any yourself."

"I don't care," Harry said.

Malfoy looked legitimately confused. "How could you not care?"

"You're so full of shit," Harry said.

Malfoy shook his head. "Potter. Land is the foundation of the Wizarding world. Do you know how it used to be? Before the withdrawal from the Muggles in the 1600s, all of England was divided up into Wizarding estates. The Muggle government forced the Ministry to break up our estates and hand it out to Muggle farmers. The Muggles robbed us. They are the reason that we wizards have to live in hiding. Land is the only way we can get our power back."

Harry blinked. "That's the biggest load of wank I've ever heard you spew."

"Speaking of SPEW, I think it and the DA should merge."

Harry stared. "What?" He wasn't sure he'd heard what he thought he'd heard. It had come out of nowhere.

"Well, the organizations have similar goals, for one. Rid the world of evil? Is that ringing a bell?"

"Malfoy, you're the evil we're trying to rid the world of!"

"We're taking away each other's business, for another thing. There's no point to having two competing evil-fighting organizations at Hogwarts. Shouldn't we be supporting school unity rather than encouraging rivalries?"

"There's a very big difference between encouraging unity and merging the DA with SPEW," Harry said.

"Oh, really? And what's that?"

Why wouldn't Malfoy just let it alone? "That we're not merging. So shove off, Malfoy."

"You'll never win the game on Saturday."

"Yes, we will. What does that have to do with anything?"

"I've been watching you practice from the top of the broom shed for two weeks come Thursday," Malfoy said. "You are not going to win. Do the Croovys even know which way to hold their bats?"

"Creeveys," Harry said. "And yes, they do."

"Too bad your Chasers don't know to catch, either," Malfoy said. "It would be so embarrassing if Gryffindor dropped the first game of the season after winning the Cup back-to-back. Especially since it's your first year as captain."

"When was the last time you caught the Snitch against me, Malfoy?" Harry said. "Oh, that's right, never."

Malfoy stepped closer to Harry and lowered his voice. "I definitely won't be catching the Snitch on Saturday if the DA and SPEW merge."

"What?"

Malfoy smiled.

Harry grabbed his arm and pulled him closer. "Are you talking about throwing the game?" he hissed.

Malfoy shrugged. "If you catch my drift."

"I don't need your help to catch anything, Malfoy."

Malfoy grabbed Harry by the shirt. "You'll never win on your own."

"I'd never throw a game. Or deal with you."

"Really, Potter. Stop being noble. It just makes you look like a dumbass. Oh, wait. You are a dumbass."

"I wanted to beat you before, Malfoy," Harry hissed. "But now you don't have a chance."

"No, Potter." Malfoy smiled. "That's you."

Harry punched him. Malfoy banged into the Fat Lady. "Ow," she said.

Harry grabbed Malfoy by the shoulders and rammed him into the painting.

"Asshole," Malfoy said.

"Really," the Fat Lady snapped. "Go to the Astronomy Tower."

"Shut up," Malfoy said over his shoulder, and then elbowed Harry in the face.

Harry grabbed Malfoy by the sweater and pushed him across the hall. He hit the wall headfirst. Malfoy doubled over and Harry took the opportunity to kick him in the side. "Now shove off, Malfoy," he said. "I never thought you'd get so desperate you'd actually offer to lose."

Malfoy struggled upright.

Harry looked at him. "You know what, I'm leaving," he said.

"What is it, Potter? In a hurry to get somewhere?"

"Yes," Harry said shortly, "away from you." He turned to the Fat Lady.

"If you go into your Common Room now I'll hear the password," Malfoy said.

"I don't care if you do," Harry said. "Crackernuts." The Fat Lady swung open with a disgruntled noise.

"You'll regret this later," Malfoy yelled after him. "Or maybe you won't, you pervy bastard." 

Harry wondered what it would take to shut Malfoy up. Death, maybe. Or an exceptionally effective whack on the head. Oh, wait. He had already done that.

-

**NOTES:**

The title is a reference to Shakespeare's _Much Ado About Nothing._

For this chapter and all future chapters, anything that sounds like it might be poking fun at Bush, probably is.

Next chapter next Thursday.


	7. In Flagrante Delicto

**Title:** Diagon Burning (7/20)

**Author Name:** **1eyedjack**

**Rating:** R

**Summary:** _Chapter 7:_ Four hookups, three small children, two winning goals, and one cow.

**DISCLAIMER:** JKR and her publishers own the characters. We just play with them. Canon information, as always, comes from the Lexicon. The Quidditch afterparty scene from Ron's POV is also adapted, in some parts verbatim, from a similar party scene in F. Scott Fitzgerald's _The Great Gatsby_. We make no claims on _Gatsby_ and don't take credit for the scene.

**Author notes:** Huge thanks to reviewers and to **emerald123** and Oli and co. for the betas. **Naodrith** and Alissa Raboin looked over earlier versions of the fic. Kelly, thanks for letting us abuse your potted plant.

**Diagon Burning**

Chapter 7:  
In Flagrante Delicto

Dinner on the night before the Slytherin game was uncomfortable. Ron spent the whole time not eating. Ginny guessed it was nerves because of tomorrow's game against Slytherin. Hermione spent the entire time watching Ron not eating, while Harry ate enough for the three of them. Dean stared at Ginny the whole meal, even though she sat at the other end of the table. He spent more of his time staring at her than could ever be considered necessary, and it was really starting to get annoying. Ginny was infinitely grateful when Harry decided he needed to go back to the Common Room and finish his Care of Magical Creatures homework. She excused herself and went with him, Ron and Hermione following behind. Dean pretended he was talking to Seamus.

Ginny walked next to Harry. "Do you think Ron will survive the night?" she asked.

Harry glanced at Ron. "He's making the game into a much bigger deal than it is. The Slytherin Chasers can't catch worth a damn."

"Bullshit."

He smiled ruefully. "Yeah, I know, but that's what I've been telling Ron all night. I keep hoping that if I say they're no good often enough that he'll buy into it and play like he isn't so nervous."

Ginny looked at Ron. He and Hermione had stopped on the side of the hallway so he could throw up into a potted plant. "I don't think he's buying into it," she said.

Harry shrugged. "It was worth a try."

They were at the portrait of the Fat Lady. Ginny was nearest, so she gave the password ("Crackernuts") and started to walk through the door. But as soon as she got a good look at the Common Room, she jumped back out into the hallway and slammed the door shut in Harry's face.

"What was that for?" squawked the Fat Lady.

"What happened?" Harry said.

Ron and Hermione walked up the last few steps. Hermione used Ron's sleeve to wipe a few dribbles of vomit off his chin.

"I think I'm going insane," Ginny said.

"What do you mean?" Hermione said.

"There's this thing I keep seeing, and I just saw it again, but there's just no way it could be in the Common Room."

"You aren't making any sense," Ron told her. "What couldn't be in the Common Room?"

"I don't think it's actually—" Ginny began, but Harry had already reopened the portrait hole and walked in. She followed, hiding behind Ron and Hermione.

Before she even looked in the room, she could tell from Hermione's shocked face and Ron's open mouth that she hadn't gone crazy: Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson really were having sex on one of the Common Room couches.

"Hey there, Potter," Malfoy said, grinning and a little short of breath. Pansy was moaning. "We just—wanted to—wish you good luck in the—game tomorrow, I think—you'll need it."

"You're the only ones who'll need luck," Hermione snapped. "You'll be lucky if Dumbledore doesn't expel you."

Malfoy just smirked.

"Ron, come with me. We're going to find Professor McGonagall." Hermione grabbed Ron's arm and dragged him out of the Common Room.

"What's this, Potter, going to stay and watch?"

Harry bristled. "I'd rather see your father naked."

"Me too," panted Pansy.

Ginny had the uncontrollable urge to barf.

Draco looked up. Granger, the snippy bitch, had just stepped through the portrait hole, Professor McGonagall in tow. McGonagall turned a rather painful shade of red. Grabbing two tartan blankets off the nearest couch, she threw them over Draco and Pansy. "Cover yourselves up, for pity's sake."

Draco supposed McGonagall was too embarrassed to speak to Professor Dumbledore, because she walked them straight to the Potions classroom. Snape seemed only mildly surprised see them, even though they were clad only in decorative Gryffindor afghans. McGonagall couldn't bring herself to speak aloud. Face still red, she whispered in Snape's ear.

His eyes went wide. "Exactly how naked?"

"Severus!"

"Mr. Malfoy, Miss Parkinson, come with me."

He beckoned them into his office and shut the door. "Professor McGonagall just informed me that you two were found _in flagrante delicto_ in the Gryffindor lair. As you are both members of my House, and Professor McGonagall is too mortified to do anything except wash her hands of the whole affair, it has fallen to me to deal with your escapade."

"We understand if you have to punish us, sir," Draco said.

Snape pursed his lips. "Did you cause Potter severe and permanent emotional trauma?"

Pansy smirked.

"Of course, sir," Draco said.

"Stick out your hands." Snape slapped them each on the wrist and then said, "Two hundred points to Slytherin for courageous and unprecedented infiltration of enemy territory." He looked at them for a moment. "Plaid really doesn't suit you, Mr. Malfoy. You should consider putting your clothes back on and returning those blankets to the Gryffindor Common Room." 

"Well, sir," Draco said, "much as I would like to rid myself of this plaid, our clothes seem to be missing in action."

"How so?"

Pansy coughed.

"Well, you see sir, we originally started on—"

"Harry, why is there a green garter belt on your bedpost?"

The day of the match against Slytherin dawned bright and clear on Hogwarts. Harry awoke with Dean standing excitedly over his bed holding out a banner he had drawn showing a red and gold lion with a big "G" coming out of its mouth. He had the same design painted on his face. "See, Harry? G for Gryffindor," Dean said, grinning. "And have I mentioned how amazed I am that you slept on your bed after Slytherin desecrated it?"

"For the seventeenth bloody time, Dean, the house elves changed the sheets!" Harry said through clenched teeth.

Dean grinned.

"G for Gryffindor? Or Ginny," Seamus smirked, drawing his bedcovers aside. "Hey Dean, tell Harry about what you guys did two Thursdays ago when Ginny skipped Herbology."

"Quiet," Dean replied. "I don't know if Ron's still asleep or not." He had a panicked look in his eye.

But Ron was awake. He had gone out to shower early. When Harry caught up with him on their way to breakfast, he looked so pale and nauseous Harry feared a rehash of Ron's less-than-stellar first few games as Keeper last year.

"All right, Ron?" Harry asked, jogging to keep up with his friend's harried stride.

"Yeah," Ron replied through clenched teeth. He looked as if someone had just had a go at his insides with an eggbeater.

"You shouldn't be nervous about the game. Not that I'm saying you are," Harry tacked on weakly as Ron blanched. "But you don't need to worry after that beating you gave Ravenclaw last year. You barely let the Quaffle through all game."

As they entered the Great Hall, a group of second year Slytherins blew them a collective raspberry. Ron turned pink. 

"I was lucky," Ron said. "And this is against bloody Malfoy and the Slytherins. You know how they play."

"We've beaten them before."

"They smashed Hufflepuff at the scrimmage last Saturday."

Harry glanced over his shoulder to make sure that no one wearing yellow and black was too close by. "Yeah, but that was Hufflepuff. That's not saying a whole lot for the Slytherins."

Hermione waved them over from a spot far down the table and gestured to two heaping bowls of porridge. "Here," she said proudly, "breakfast."

Ron looked across the hall to the Slytherin table, where the second years were taking their seats, still snickering. "I'm not hungry," he muttered, pushing his porridge aside and slumping onto the table headfirst.

Hermione gave Harry a questioning look. He mouthed, "Nerves," at her.

She rolled her eyes and patted Ron on the back. "Come on, Ron," she said consolingly, "if you're going to fly, you have to eat."

Gazing after the Slytherin second years, Harry found himself staring at Malfoy, who was whispering something dirty to Pansy Parkinson, judging by her delighted expression. Disgusting. Malfoy looked up to meet Harry's gaze, bared his teeth, and slowly drew a finger across his neck.

Harry rolled his eyes, sat down, and ate his porridge.

Ron's condition had only worsened by the time they made it to the pitch.

"I hate this," he muttered as the team lined up to wait for the Slytherins to come out of the locker room. Students were already pouring into the stands and Ron was getting paler by the second. "I wish I had never tried out for this bloody team."

"Buck up, Ron," Ginny hissed out of the side of her mouth. When she was exasperated, she looked a great deal like her mother. "You did fine last year." The Slytherin team filed out of the locker room and made their way across the pitch.

"This is this year," Ron moaned. 

Ginny looked at Harry for help.

"Ron," Harry began, "even if you couldn't Keep, which you _can_, by the way, Malfoy still doesn't know how to catch the Snitch." 

"Wishful thinking , Potter," Malfoy sneered, stopping opposite Harry. Crabbe, Goyle, Parkinson and the rest of his team fanned out behind him.

"Really?" Harry said. "When's the last time you beat me, Malfoy?"

Malfoy smirked. "Hey Potter, when's the last time you got some from anyone except Weasley's mom?"

Sensing a fight, Avery grabbed Harry and Malfoy by the shoulders. "Captains, shake hands," he said.

Malfoy gave Harry a disdainful look and stuck out his hand as if he was doing him a great favor. Harry grabbed it and clenched it as tight as he could.

"Are you trying to break my hand, Potter?"

"Don't be a girl about it."

Avery blew his whistle. "Teams, mount your brooms."

"I still broke your nose."

"Didn't you hear?" Parkinson leaned towards Ginny with a smirk. "Draco's been named captain."

"Oh, good." Ginny smiled. "Then you're guaranteed to lose."

Parkinson ignored her. "I have a tip for you, Weasley," she said. "When you see the Quaffle, you're supposed to catch it."

Ginny bristled. "I _know_."

"Draco's been watching your practice for two weeks, and actually, you don't." Parkinson smiled. "Have a good game."

Avery blew his whistle. "Teams, mount your brooms."

Ginny saw Harry make a stabbing gesture at Malfoy as he threw his leg over his broomstick.

"Remember, Weasley," Parkinson said, "it's called catching."

"Three, two, one," and Avery threw the Quaffle in the air.

It was in Ginny's hands before she could even think. She dodged both Bludgers, Crabbe, Goyle, and Harry—she didn't even try to pass to Kirke or Sloper, they were worthless—but she kept her eye on Parkinson, already circling the goalposts like she owned them, the arrogant bitch. Ginny raised her arm and pegged the Quaffle straight at Parkinson's head. Luckily for the Slytherin team, her aim was about half a hair off, and it nicked the goalpost instead of Parkinson's ugly face.

"And Weasley scores, in record time. I don't think I've ever seen a goal that fast," Seamus's commentary rang out over the pitch. "Of course Gryffindor would be the team to do it. Rack up ten points for them. Ginny Weasley, you're my hero! What are you doing Friday night?"

Ginny grinned, but her happiness was short-lived. In the next five minutes, Slytherinset another scoring record, this time for being the first team in the history of the school to lead by 140 points within less than ten minutes of play. Malfoy had whipped his team into a well-greased beast. Of course, she couldn't give him all the credit. After the first Slytherin goal, Ron was a nervous wreck. The Creeveys were practically falling off their brooms, and Sloper and Kirke were nowhere to be seen. She prayed to God that Harry would catch the Snitch before she had to deny ever having been a member of the Gryffindor squad.

When Harry finally saw the Snitch, the hope that had been battered down by fifteen straight Slytherin goals resurfaced. It was just a flash of gold in the bottom corner of his eye. When he wheeled around, Malfoy was almost right on top of it—another few meters and he would have the game.

Doubling his grip on his Firebolt, Harry gunned his broom, forcing himself into a near vertical drop as he tried to cut Malfoy off. His hair whipped up past his ears, his glasses skittered down his nose, and he felt his cheeks pull back and flatten as if they couldn't keep up with the speed of his flight. The white of Malfoy's hair grew from a dot to a blotch to a head as the little golden circle of the Snitch became more and more visible. Fighting the wind, Harry forced one hand off his broom. Malfoy was reaching forward at the same time. One more burst of speed and he was close enough to bat the Malfoy's fingers out of the way and grab the Snitch. The crowd started screaming.

Before Harry had completely closed his fist, Malfoy's entire hand—behind Harry's own—slammed into his wrist. Malfoy dug his thumb under Harry's wrist guard, pressing his fingernails into Harry's skin. They began to spiral downward.

"Let go," Harry hissed.

Malfoy tightened his hold on Harry's wrist. "Let go of my Snitch."

"No," Harry spat, trying to worm away, "I caught it."

Malfoy forced a finger into Harry's fist. "Not yet."

Harry tightened his fingers—so hard Malfoy sucked in sharply. "Make me let go." As if from far away, the stands burst into screams. Harry imagined they were cheering him on against Malfoy.

Harry saw Malfoy glance over his shoulder. With a small inclination of his head, he let go. Moments later, their feet touched the ground. "Congratulations," Malfoy hissed with a small smile.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy—I have not witnessed such ridiculous histrionic carrying-on since— " Professor McGonagall paused, red-faced as the wave of students and teachers pouring out of the stands broke around them, "well, since your last Quidditch match. Twenty points from Slytherin—and Gryffindor, too, Potter, don't give me that face. It's painful enough as it is."

"Slytherin wins," Avery said as he landed, both teams touching down around him.

Harry felt as if someone had just smacked him upside the head. "What?" He opened his hand to reveal the Snitch. "The score was 150-10. With the extra 150 points, Gryffindor wins."

"I let them through twice more, mate," Ron said glumly as he landed next to Harry. "Once as you were diving for the Snitch and then again when Malfoy was grabbing your hand."

"But that second goal shouldn't count. I caught the Snitch," Harry said. "The game was over."

"The game's not technically over until the Seeker catches the Snitch uncontested," Malfoy said, smirking, "or didn't you read _Quidditch Through the Ages_, Potter? And the Snitch wasn't unconditionally caught in that time. My fingers were in Potter's." He pointed at Harry's outstretched palm. "He has the marks to prove it."

Harry clinched his hand into a fist. "You dirty, cheating—"

"Only if cheating is having a team that knows how to catch a Quaffle," Malfoy said smugly as Parkinson landed beside him and Crabbe and Goyle pulled up behind. They swung their Beaters' bats in Harry's direction.

"Hey Weasley!" Parkinson said. Ron and Ginny both turned. "Speaking of the Quaffle, the only reason you got that goal was because I had to sneeze." She flashed her teeth.

Looking back at the white, dejected faces of his own team, Harry knew he had to do something. He couldn't let Malfoy stand there with that smug expression. "Hey Malfoy," he said, tossing him the Snitch, "here. Consider it a gift until you learn how to catch one for yourself." He spun around and waved his team toward the locker rooms without even stopping to look at Malfoy's expression. "Come on," he said, "I need a shower."

Harry took about four steps toward the lockers before something smacked him in the back of his head. He spun around to see a flash of gold speed off toward the goalposts. Malfoy had pegged him with the Snitch. Harry looked at him for a moment. Malfoy's eyes narrowed.

A light hand touched his shoulder. "Come on, Harry." Ginny nodded toward the locker rooms. "He's just a sore winner."

"Where did you say Lucius Malfoy was?"

Tonks frowned. "When I was here last week you could see him from here. But that wasn't on a Saturday. I suppose Diagon Alley's much more crowded on weekends, wouldn't you think?" She walked into his side, casually, as she had been doing every ten seconds since they'd Flooed into the Leaky Cauldron. It was getting on Lupin's nerves.

"Yes, that would make sense," he said.

Tonks nodded. "Speaking of weekends, what are you doing tonight?"

"What?"

"Even you can't have failed to notice that it's a Saturday night." She waggled her eyebrows at him.

"I'm busy," he said.

"Doing what?"

Avoiding you. "So," he said loudly, pretending he hadn't heard her, "what exactly is it that Malfoy's doing in Diagon Alley?"

"Oh. Well, that, like many of the best things in life, will require that you wait and see." She winked and added, "But, if you'd prefer, you don't really have to wait…" The thump of her hip against his leg made it abundantly clear that she wasn't talking about Malfoy.

"That's okay, I'll see what Malfoy's doing for myself," Lupin said, taking pains to leave no room for purposeful misinterpretation.

"Oh." Tonks looked briefly disappointed and fell silent. Thank Merlin.

Maybe fifteen seconds passed before she slammed into his side again. Lupin's patience broke.

"Could you please stop that?" he snapped.

"Stop what?"

"Walking into me. You do it all the time."

"Sorry," she said cheerfully. "I'm just so clumsy, you know."

"Could you be clumsy over there? Out of my personal bubble?"

"Come on," she said, punching him in the arm, "we're all in the Order, we're like one big family!" She took the same arm and began to stroke it. "We have no personal bubble!"

"If we're all one big family, wouldn't what you're doing to my arm be count as incest?"

Tonks gave him arm one long, disturbing stroke and considered. She grinned. "I'm game if you are."

He just stared and wrenched his arm away from her. Fortunately, the appearance of an unmistakable white-blond head at a desk outside Gringotts prevented him from having to continue the conversation.

Lupin stopped and watched the line inch forward. The crowd appeared to stretch all the way back to the Leaky Cauldron, and some people, who'd apparently planned on spending a long time in line, had even brought tents. An old geezer was sitting in a lawn chair in front of one of them, roasting kielbasa over a purple flame.

Lucius Malfoy was seated alone at the desk, still in a wheelchair, listening to a sobbing dark-haired woman flanked by two small children. She tried to pass one of the toddlers to Malfoy over the table. Malfoy gently pushed the child back towards the woman, scribbled something on a piece of paper, and handed it to her, She burst into even more enthusiastic sobs and, incredibly, leaned across the table and kissed Malfoy on the cheek. More incredibly, Malfoy let her. He smiled and waved as she waddled off, toddlers in tow.

Tonks pressed herself against Lupin's side and murmured against his ear, "Let's get closer."

"What?" Lupin sprang back.

"Closer to Malfoy, I mean," she said innocently. "Don't you want to hear what he's saying?" She walked towards Gringotts, glancing back to see if he was following her. Unfortunately, he was. The Order needed to know everything it could about Malfoy and SPEW, Tonks be damned.

She stepped into an unused storefront two to the left of Gringotts. "We should be able to hear him from here," she whispered.

"Why are we whispering?"

"So Malfoy doesn't hear us."

"There's no way that Malfoy could possibly hear us from—" He stopped. The next person in line had just stepped up to the desk. "Look, why don't we just listen to—hey, isn't that Norrick Travers?"

Tonks squinted. "Yup. Sure looks just like him. Why?"

"Why? Because this proves that Malfoy still has Death Eater connections. He's conversing with a known Death Eater!"

"The fact that he's talking to a Death Eater," Tonks said, placing what she probably thought was a soothing hand on his chest, "doesn't mean he has Death Eater connections."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Look, my Great Aunt Meliflua comes here. Once a week, actually, and she always talks about how good and kind Lucius Malfoy is—she says he never turns anyone away."

"Isn't that the same Great Aunt Meliflua Sirius had?" Lupin said suspiciously. "The one whose two children and five grandchildren were all Death Eaters?"

"Huh," Tonks said. "Suppose so."

"Huh," Lupin said. "Funny coincidence, that. Now we've got two Death Eater connections. We don't need any more proof than that. Let's go tell Dumbledore."

"Wait." She threw her body in front of him, ostensibly to prevent him from leaving. "I think we might want to hold off until you get a better idea of what Malfoy's actually doing."

"We already know! He's conversing with known Death Eaters."

"Just watch for a few minutes." She spun him around.

Lupin sighed and conceded.

A family of three was next, the boy, perhaps seven years old, tugging a belligerent cow behind him. "Please, sir," the father was saying, "an evil curse has made our cow's milk turn sour. Little Stewart will starve without good milk."

"An evil curse?" Malfoy said, eyeing the cow.

"Evil," the mother agreed.

"Hmm," Malfoy said, considering for about two seconds. "All right. Let me write out the form. To the…?"

"Maloneys," the father supplied eagerly. "The Maloney family."

"To the Maloney family," Malfoy said as he wrote, "one cow. Signed, Lucius Malfoy, Founder, SPEW." He put down the quill and handed over the paper. "Just go over to the processing table, they'll take care of everything."

"Oh, thank you, sir, thank you!" the mother gushed. The cow, however, had had enough and run off, dragging little Stewart behind it. The mother screamed, "Stewart!" and chased after them.

Lupin turned to Tonks. "Malfoy's giving out handouts?"

"Well, no, not exactly," Tonks said.

Lupin watched for a few more minutes. Malfoy signed away a set of dress robes, a new wand, three cauldrons, a house—"evil destroyed our finances"—and a rag doll.

"What part of this makes you think Malfoy isn't giving out handouts?" Lupin asked finally.

"Well, he isn't," Tonks said. "He's mending people's lives that were destroyed by evil."

"Like the guy who said, 'Evil made my wand snap in half when a charm backfired?' That's not evil, that's incompetence!"

"Maybe." She shrugged and gestured at the line snaking back through Diagon Alley. "But the people love Lucius Malfoy."

_Yes_, Lupin thought, _that's exactly the problem_. He'd seen enough.

Tonks tried to grab his ass as he left.

Harry had forgotten how much he hated the smell of vomit. Not that he commonly thought about it or anything, but when Ginny was bent double over the toilet, puking herself silly, it was rather hard to forget. He resisted the urge to run away and handed her the bath towel. "Shouldn't have drunk so much Butterbeer at the afterparty," she said, rubbing her face in the towel. "Didn't know Butterbeer could do that to you."

Harry took the towel from her and promptly dropped it on the floor. "Erm," he said. "You weren't drinking Butterbeer."

She sat up too quickly and groaned. "What do you mean, it wasn't Butterbeer?" She clutched at the empty bottle beside her. "It says Butterbeer here."

It did, but Harry sniffed at it. "Seamus, Ron, and Dean refilled the empty bottles with Firewhiskey. I saw them."

Ginny rolled her eyes in exasperation. "I can't believe that boy."

There was no need to ask what boy she meant. Harry didn't know what to say. He didn't really want to talk about Ginny and Dean's relationship. She'd been saying nasty things about him, and Harry hadn't seen them together for at least a week. "Well," he said.

"We didn't even win the Quidditch game and Dean breaks out the Firewhiskey," Ginny snapped. She slumped back against the toilet.

Feeling a little awkward, Harry put a hand on her shoulder. She looked at him sideways and started to laugh. "What?" he said. He hadn't done anything funny, not that he knew of, there was nothing amusing about the situation in general. Getting drunk and throwing up all over herself in the Gryffindor boys' toilets wasn't funny at all.

"Nothing," she said, wiping her face on the sleeve of her robes. "It's nothing."

"You're still drunk," Harry realized.

"Yep," Ginny agreed with a final giggle.

"I need to get you to bed," Harry said. "Come on." He stood up and held out a hand for her. She took it, teetered up, and overbalanced, falling into Harry. He caught her, but she slumped against him, grappling her hands against his back until she managed to find his shoulders and pushed back. When they got to the foot of the girls' stairs, with much stumbling and weaving, she crooked a finger and motioned him closer.

"I have a secret," she whispered. 

"What?" He leaned close.

She kissed him. Fat, wet, sloppy, and definitely more on the chin than the mouth. "I want to do that all the time," she said huskily, "but I'll deny it in the morning." Then she threw up all over his shirt. Harry blinked. Ginny clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, bugger."

Ron would never admit it to any of the boys in the year, but he had only been drunk twice in his life, and one of those times was that night. So everything that happened had a dim, hazy cast over it, although until after eight o'clock the Common Room was full of cheerful sun. Sitting on Harry's lap, Ginny was belting out "Weasley is Our King." Then there was no more Butterbeer and Ron went out with Seamus and Dean to get some from the kitchens. When he came back, Harry and Ginny were gone, and he put the Firewhiskey down and read a chapter of _Hogwarts, A History_, just because he never would sober. Either it was terrible stuff or the whiskey distorted things because it didn't make any sense.

Lavender waltzed in and fell onto the couch on top of Dean. "Draw me," she slurred into his ear. "Draw me naked."

"I'll go get my sketchpad," Dean said. He left.

"Put your breasts away, Lavender," Hermione said.

"They have to be out for him to draw me naked, Hermione."

"Dean is such a talented artist," Seamus said, taking a swig of Firewhiskey.

Ron nodded towards Lavender. "If we could get you in that pose, Hermione, I think Dean could make something of it."

"I'd want to change the light," she said. "As in, turn it off."

"I wouldn't think of changing the light." Lavender smiled.

Dean bounded down with a sketchpad. He still hadn't washed off the Gryffindor lion he had painted on his face.

Harry walked down from the dorms, ogled Lavender's breasts, and finished off the bottle of Firewhiskey.

"Hey, Dean," Lavender said, "draw Harry naked, and then you can sell it, and buy me presents."

"I'm going to bed," Harry said.

It was nine o'clock—almost immediately afterwards Ron looked at his watch and saw that it was ten. Dean was asleep in his chair with his fists clenched in his lap. Ron stumbled over and used his shirt to wipe off the painted lion. People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away. Sometime toward midnight Ron and Hermione stood face-to-face discussing in impassioned voices whether or not Hermione had any right to mention the word "sex." "Sex, sex, sex!" shouted Hermione. "I'll say it whenever I want to! Sex, sex—"

Ron tried to shut her up and Hermione kissed him back. Dean awoke in a doze and started in a daze towards the dorm. Taking his hat from the chandelier Ron followed.

"We should have lunch one day," Dean suggested as they walked up the stairs together.

"We already do," Ron said.

"Keep your hands off my broomstick," they heard Colin Creevey shout from the Common Room.

"I beg your pardon," Dean said. "I didn't know I was touching it."

"All right," Ron said. "I'll be glad to."

…And he was standing beside Dean's bed and Dean was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a huge portfolio in his hands.

"Ginny in the Moonlight…Ginny by the Lake…Ginny Doing Her Potions Homework…Ginny Staring at the Wall…"

"I don't like you drawing my sister."

Then Ron was lying half asleep and the door creaked and Harry staggered in and the clock struck three am.

After fifteen minutes of heated argument, Hermione had finally roped Harry into going to the library to work on their Defense Against the Dark Arts project. Harry had wanted to stay in the Common Room, but she knew that if they stayed there they would be distracted, and Harry would want to play Exploding Snap with Ron and would become snippy when she didn't let him, and they wouldn't accomplish a thing. Plus, this was a research project. Contrary to what Harry might think, all those books didn't just materialize in Hermione's satchel every morning. Research involved going to the library. Harry's argument boiled down to lethargy and procrastination, as it always did.

They sat not far from the Restricted Section, at a table covered with books, quills, and papers laid out in the complex organizational system that Harry had never understood, although he'd seen Hermione use it since first year. A while back Hermione had tried to explain it to him, but she'd quickly realized he was hopeless. Now, whenever she worked with Harry, she left a patch of clear table for him and handed him what she wanted him to use so that he wouldn't destroy her research.

Currently he was staring, puzzled, at a fifteenth-century text about Smiggledons in the northern British moors, apparently unable to decipher the Middle English script, seeing as he hadn't turned the page in the past half hour. She had only twenty pages left in _The Moderne Guide to Darke Kreatures_, the 1176 edition, and she didn't want to break her concentration, but she couldn't leave Harry sitting there like a troll.

"Harry," she said, "why don't you go get the Tithering account of the 1781 Smiggledon sightings? It should be near the back of the third aisle over from the Restricted Section, on the left."

He stood up immediately and stretched—she could hear the bones in his arms pop—then wandered towards the stacks. Hermione returned to her research. At least now Harry would be doing something useful. He might even stay awake for it.

Before she'd fully regained her concentration she heard the wood-on-wood clunk of a chair pushed into a table. She glanced up to see Draco Malfoy stride across the library, heading straight for the aisle into which Harry had disappeared.

Just what Harry didn't need.

Harry could deal with Malfoy, though, even if Malfoy had been worse this year. Harry wasn't stupid. There was no point in her getting involved unless she needed to.

She opened her book to page 1728 and stuck her nose inside it, but she couldn't ignore the murmur of low voices coming from the stacks by the Restricted Section. Harry and Malfoy. She forced herself on. _In the goode Year Eleven Hundred and Three, the Smiggeldonne Population…_

The whispers stopped. But then she heard a heavy thud, and another, then many at once. She couldn't tell what the noise was at first; then she noticed the third stack over from the Restricted Section tilt back and lean forward again. The sounds were falling books.

Hermione jumped up, set down her book—it was too old to drop without damaging it—and sped over to Harry's aisle. The stack tilted back, and Hermione had to quash the urge to grab it and save those books from potential damage. Then she saw the reason for the books' danger: Malfoy was pushing Harry's shoulders against the stack. They were both breathing hard, and both sported the angry pink skin that would later be bruises.

"Malfoy, let him alone," Hermione said.

"Why should a pureblood have to do what a Mudblood says?" he said coldly, his eyes gray and murderous.

"Because I could best you in any duel we ever had, just like I've beaten you in every class that grades fairly." 

"Any Potions Master in the world would tell you that I'm better at Potions than you, you bushy-haired poodle. And as for you being better than me in a duel? I doubt it." But he released Harry and stalked out of the library.

Hermione rushed over to Harry. "Harry, are you okay?" She laid a concerned hand on his arm. He flinched.

"I'm fine." He picked up a leather-bound volume and returned to the table, leaving a dozen or so books scattered on the floor. Hermione left them there; they weren't going to walk away while she checked on Harry. Most of them weren't, anyway.

She slid into the chair across from him. The books were stacked so high that she could barely see his face. But, "Harry, your lip is bleeding. Did Malfoy punch you?"

He blinked a couple of times. He looked shell-shocked. "Yeah. I—yeah." Then he said rapidly, "I have to go." He shoved away from the table and grabbed his bag, leaving two quills and his Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook on the table. He even left the book he'd gone after, the Tithering account, in his haste to leave.

Harry was lucky she was here to clean up after him. Hermione rolled her eyes and returned to her research.

Cal Avery had twenty-eight pages of new Quidditch rules to learn, forty-seven third year papers to grade, and three Hufflepuffs to tutor. It was going to be a long night. The only way he stood a chance of finishing it all was to take it to the library. In seven years as a Hogwarts student, he had spent less time in the library, total, than he was planning on spending there tonight, but with all the first years beating down his office door for extra help and the crowd of third year girls lollygagging around in the hallway just outside his door and giggling every time they caught sight of him, his office had ceased to be an efficient work environment.

He rounded the corner onto the library hallway and saw Draco Malfoy leaning against the wall opposite the library door. Avery was about to remind Malfoy that students were not supposed to loiter in the hallways when Harry Potter exited the library and hissed at Malfoy, "What the hell was that for?"

Malfoy smiled. "Because I can." He grabbed Potter's necktie.

"Fuck you," Potter said, but he didn't back down.

"Language, Potter," Avery said.

Potter turned to face him. He didn't seem to have realized that Avery was there. "I'm sorry, Professor."

Avery nodded, then looked between the two of them, Potter angry-faced and Malfoy calm. He glanced at the library door, thought about Quidditch rules, third year papers, and Hufflepuffs, and decided he didn't really want to know what was going on here. As he walked into the library he saw Potter grab Malfoy by the shirt in the reflection in the glass door.

_NEXT CHAPTER NEXT THURSDAY_


	8. Ginny Weasley, Skank Extraordinaire

**Title:** Diagon Burning (8/20)

**Author:** **1eyedjack**

**Rating:** R

**Summary:** _Chapter 8:_ One breakup, one fight, one kiss, one hickey, and it's all Ginny's fault. Except when it's the skrewts.

**DISCLAIMER:** JKR and her publishers own the characters. We just play with them. Canon information, as always, comes from the Lexicon. Additional disclaimers at the end of the chapter.

**Author notes:** Huge thanks, as always, to reviewers and to **emerald123** and Oli and co. for the betas. **Naodrith** and Alissa Raboin looked over earlier versions of the fic.

**Diagon Burning**

Chapter 8:  
Ginny Weasley, Skank Extraordinaire

"I think Harry's got a girlfriend," Seamus announced one night in mid-October. Neville yawned, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

"A girlfriend?" Ron sat straight up. "Why do you think that?"

"Well, where is he now?" Dean gestured around the room.

Ron looked at Harry's empty bed. "At Quidditch practice."

"At eleven o'clock?" Seamus blinked.

"He stayed late to help Ginny. She had some questions about flying." 

Seamus smirked. "Yeah, Dean knows all about those extracurricular practices with Ginny."

Ron blinked. "Dean isn't on the Quidditch team." Then it hit him. "Oh."

Dean had the good sense to look uncomfortable. "So how are those Chudley Cannons this year, Ron?"

"Why have you been having extracurricular practices with my sister?" Ron said. "Why have you been telling him about extracurricular…things with my sister?" He jerked his head at Seamus.

"I haven't told him anything."

"Dean hasn't told me anything," Seamus echoed.

"Have you been saying my sister is a slut?"

"Look, Ron," Dean said, "Ginny is my girlfriend. What we do is none of your business."

"Dean's just pissed because he and Ginny haven't had any extracurricular practice for two and a half weeks," Seamus pitched in. "She's been avoiding him."

"I thought Dean hasn't told you anything," Ron said.

"Uh," Seamus said.

Ron scowled.

"Never mind," Seamus said. "I was just wondering where Harry was."

"I don't like you talking about Ginny like that," Ron said.

"I never said anything about Ginny," Seamus said. "You're jumping to conclusions, Ron."

"I'll say," Dean muttered.

Seamus sat down next to Ron. "When's the last time Harry's been in bed before any of us went to sleep?"

"Last night," Ron said, feeling triumphant. "We came up early after playing chess."

"Ginny spent all of yesterday sick in bed with stomach flu," Dean remarked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ron said.

"That was the first time he's been here since the start of term," Dean said.

"Dean's exaggerating." Seamus shrugged. "But you have to admit he's gone a lot, Ron. Especially in the last few weeks."

"The last two and a half weeks," Dean muttered.

"Harry's not doing anything wrong," Ron snapped.

"Then why hasn't Ginny talked to me in two and a half weeks?" Dean stood up. 

"Because you're a shit hole who talks about her behind her back?" Ron said.

Dean opened his mouth to reply, but Seamus cut him off. "We still haven't answered the question of—"

"Where Harry is, yes, I know," Ron said. "I thought I told you. I don't know why you keep bringing this up, Seamus, unless you know something I don't. About where he is, I mean."

"Why would he tell me and not you?" Seamus said.

"I don't know."

"I already told you what I thought. I told you I thought he had a girlfriend."

"My sister?" They both looked at Dean.

"I thought he'd be better that that, you know." Dean looked down at his hands. "I always thought Harry was a decent guy."

"Dean," Ron began, very slowly and calmly, "if you want to sleep in this dormitory tonight, I recommend that you stop being such a faggot."

"So double-timing's okay? No wonder your Mum had so many kids, Weasley."

"That's it, Dean. Out," Ron said, teeth gritted.

"What do you—"

"Do it now, Dean, or you'll lose something a lot more vital than a girlfriend." He stood up and stepped towards Dean.

"I think he means it, Dean," Seamus provided helpfully.

"You too," Ron said. "Out."

"Trying to clear the place out?" Dean didn't back down. "Hoping that when Ginny gets back she'll show you a bit of what Harry taught her?"

Ron punched him.

Dean staggered backward. He opened his mouth, shocked, and spat blood on the carpet. "Was that for Ginny or Harry?" he said.

Ron walked across the room and threw open the door. "That was because I don't like your face."

"I think I'll be leaving now," Seamus said.

"Good idea," Ron said, as Seamus bolted out and slammed the door. "So Dean, what exactly was it you wanted to say to me? Just so long as you know that I'm not promising not to pound your face if you say anything I don't like. Actually, I'll probably pound your face if you say anything at all. You've put me in that good of a mood."

"If you want to fight, then quit talking." Dean said, rolling up the sleeves of his pajamas. The penguins on his shirt squawked menacingly. He jumped toward Ron, and then paused mid-lunge.

Ron heard someone shouting outside the room. The door clicked open. "Seamus, I'm telling you, I'm going inside." Harry turned around. He had a split lip and his eye was already bruising. "Oh, hello, Ron. I thought you'd be asleep."

"What happened to you?" Ron said, his fight with Dean temporarily forgotten. 

Harry shrugged. "I went to visit Hagrid after Quidditch practice. He asked me to help him feed the skrewts." He looked around the room. Blood was dribbling down Dean's chin from where Ron had punched him. "What happened to you?"

"I popped a zit," Dean muttered, storming across the dorm, diving into his bed, and pulling the covers over his head.

"What's the matter with him?" Harry asked Ron, eyes following Dean's hand as he jerked the curtains shut.

"No idea," Ron said, his fist unclenching.

"He thinks you're shagging Ginny," Seamus said helpfully, venturing back into the room. He purposefully ignored Ron's glare.

"Ah," Harry said, but did not offer any additional commentary on the subject. "I'm going to go see how bad the damage is." He wandered into the bathroom.

"Potentially irreparable," Seamus said.

"He means to his face," Ron said harshly, but he had the feeling that Seamus was right about Dean. It wasn't bothering him too much at the moment.

"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed at breakfast, the _Daily Prophet_ dropping to her plate, forgotten. "What happened to you?" She gestured at his face with her spoon. 

"You should see the other guy," Harry said.

"Tell me you're kidding, Harry. You don't need to be getting in any more fights, especially with your probation and everything. Please tell me you didn't get in a fight with Malfoy."

"Don't worry, Hermione, I wasn't fighting with Malfoy."

"What happened, then?"

"I went to Hagrid's cabin after Quidditch practice and he had me help him feed the Blast-Ended Skrewts."

She eyed the bruises on his neck and jaw. "Blast-Ended Skrewts burn you, Harry. They don't punch you."

"Nobody punched me, Hermione. Give it a rest. The skrewts have a cold. When they catch colds, they get so cranky they won't let anyone in their pen to feed them or change their water or anything, so Hagrid had me feed them and stuff while he held them down, and even then a few of them kicked me. Hagrid got the worst of it, though. He's got out those dragon steaks again, like he used when he first came back with Grawp."

"How would the skrewts catch a cold?" Hermione asked. "And how would that make then stop blasting?"

"I don't know, ask Hagrid. We have his class second period. Or you could look in your textbook, I'm sure it's in there." Harry picked up his book bag. "I've got to go to Divination. Ron, are you coming?"

Ron blinked and broke the glaring contest he'd been having with Dean. "Divination? Right," he said and shoveled the last of his eggs into his mouth. "I'm ready."

"We'll see you after class," Harry said.

Hermione watched them leave. Harry had to be lying. He hated the skrewts. There was simply no way he'd agree to help Hagrid feed them. But at the same time she couldn't believe that he would lie to her unless there was a good reason for it. She was sure he would tell her when he was ready.

The Gryffindor Quidditch team had just finished its seventh practice in the past six days, and everyone was worn out. That was good. Harry had accomplished what he'd wanted to accomplish. He'd ordered Colin and Dennis to hit the Bludgers at Kirke and Sloper whenever they passed to anyone but Ginny and forced all three Chasers to do nothing but throw the Quaffle at Ron all practice. The first hour had been a disaster, but after Sloper and Kirke had been hit by Bludgers the twentieth time they began to share the Quaffle and even Ron blocked a few of attempts at scoring. The team wasn't perfect, but after letting Slytherin score 140 points in ten minutes, Harry would be pleased with mediocrity.

"Harry, can I talk to you for a minute?" Ginny hadn't changed out of her gear yet, and her hair was falling out of its ponytail and curling damp around her shoulders.

"Sure, Ginny. What is it?"

"I need you to help me with something. Can we go outside?"

"All right," Harry said. He picked up his broomstick and followed her out the locker rooms doors and towards the Quidditch pitch, wondering what she needed help with. Not the Hawk's Head Move, that was perfect, but it might be the Starfish-on-a-Stick; her tailspin was a little too quick.

But she stopped walking well before they arrived at the pitch and turned into a side flower garden. Harry followed her, confused.

"What did you want my help with?"

"It doesn't actually have anything to do with Quidditch."

Weird, but, "Okay. They what does it have to do with?"

Ginny blushed, but did not break her gaze. "Do you remember how when you came over to our house during my first year at Hogwarts I would get all nervous and try to hide and stare at you at the same time? And I'd always end up making a fool of myself?"

"What about it?"

"Do you remember? Just humor me."

"Of course I remember," Harry said. 

"What about that awful singing valentine I sent you in your second year?"

"Yeah."

"And remember when you asked me to the Yule Ball when you were a fourth year and I had to say no because I'd already agreed to go with Neville?"

"Yeah, but—"

"What about when I kissed you at the Quidditch afterparty?"

"You remember that?"

She grinned. "I wasn't _that_ drunk."

Harry blinked. "You threw up all over my shirt."

"Okay, so I was."

"Ginny, what's all this about?"

Ginny stared at him. "Are you really this dense? Harry James Potter, I have had a crush on you for six years now and if you don't kiss me this instant, I'll turn your broomstick into a toothpick."

Harry did not ask if she was referring to his Firebolt.

"Harry's a little late getting back from Quidditch practice, isn't he?" Parvati said. "Are you sure you want to wait until he gets back to go to dinner?"

"He'll be back," Ron said. "I saw him heading outside with Ginny after practice. He's been giving her some extra help lately."

"It's been nearly half an hour since you got back, Ron. What could be taking them this long?"

"You know what, Parvati? I'm sure they'll—"

"I'll see if they're still practicing," Hermione said, more to prevent an argument than anything else, and walked over to the Common Room's pitch-side windows. She didn't see anyone outside; maybe they were back in the locker room, as it was getting dark.

But then her eyes caught on something: one of the gardens near the pitch was lit up with twinkling lights, the kind that were charmed to come on at twilight. In their glow, Hermione saw two figures, both obviously unaware of the lights, if the enthusiasm of their embrace was any indication. She immediately identified the long, flaming red hair as Ginny Weasley's, but the boy's head was tilted away from Hermione and she couldn't tell who it was. All she could see of him was a slope of shoulder and arms curving around Ginny's waist. Arms wearing Quidditch pads. Hermione ran down the list of boys on the Gryffindor squad: obviously not Ron, because not only eww, but he was in the Common Room; Dennis and Colin were too small; Sloper and Kirke were otherwise occupied in an illicit and obvious homosexual relationship; and then there was—

Harry. Ginny shifted and twinkling lights reflected off glasses, leaving no room for doubt. Hermione turned away and headed back towards the common room. She certainly couldn't tell Ron after the way he was acting towards Dean recently. If he found out Harry and Ginny were together he'd be even angrier.

"Did you see them?" Ron asked as soon as she walked in.

"Yes," Hermione said. "They were just heading inside."

"Oh, good. I wouldn't want to have to hunt him down. But I know Harry wouldn't miss dinner."

"Of course he wouldn't," Hermione agreed quickly, and gnawed on her fingernail, hoping that Ron wouldn't ask what Harry and Ginny had been doing.

Harry and Ginny wandered in, red-faced, ten minutes later. Hermione nearly swallowed her finger, but Ron jumped up and said to Harry, "Hey mate, where've you been?"

Harry grinned. "Helping Ginny."

_That's an interesting way to phrase it,_ Hermione thought. It certainly explained some things about Harry and the Blast-Ended Skrewts.

They went to dinner, Harry still sweaty.

Over the summer break, the DA had apparently become a very public organization. It had been twenty minutes since the meeting started and Harry was just finishing up the roll with "Zanzibar, Abdul." 

"Here!" Abdul Zanzibar's voice was high-pitched and squeaky. Harry couldn't imagine that he himself had been that small when he was eleven.

He set the roster down. He felt utterly exhausted. "Thank you all for coming. I didn't expect this many people." There were at least a hundred members. More than half were Gryffindors. "We may have to break up into smaller groups or something, but since we're all here tonight, let's get started on a charm that's pretty basic, but essential: _Expelliarmus_. If those of you who were here last year would walk around and help out, let's partner up and give it a try."

Considering that ten of the new members were first years and had only been doing serious magic for a little more than a month, the first round of _Expelliarmus_ went surprisingly well. No one caught on fire and only three pieces of furniture were irreparably damaged.

Harry was particularly happy when he saw Neville bending over little Abdul Zanzibar telling him it was quite all right that he had knocked his partner unconscious and showing him the right way to hold his wand.

"All right, everybody." Harry held up his hands to get people's attention. "Good job. If you, er, knocked your partner out and don't know what to do, raise your hand and Hermione will come around and revive them. Now, for the second round I'd suggest concentrating on—"

The door to the Room of Requirement clicked open. "Sorry I'm late." Draco Malfoy stepped inside. Everybody looked at each other. A buzz ran across the students.

"Go away, Malfoy," Harry said.

Malfoy walked up to one of the Gryffindor first years and put his arms around the kid's shoulders. "But I want to be a part of your fight against evil, Potter." The first year started to cry.

"No." Harry crossed his arms. "You're not allowed."

"Stop molesting the children, Malfoy," said Hermione coldly, coming up behind him and forcibly removing his arm from the first year.

Malfoy smirked at her and then calmly reached into his pocket. He took out an official looking piece of parchment. "Your DA, Potter, is free and open to the public. I stole the 'Free and Open Organizations' sign from the Slytherin Common Room to prove it to you. You can take a look if you want." He held out the parchment.

"My organization is free and open to everyone except for you, Malfoy," Harry said. "And your girlfriend," he added after a moment's consideration. 

"Don't bring Pansy into this." Malfoy sounded bored. 

"She's your minion," Harry said.

"And cheap!" Ginny added from the second row.

Malfoy waved a hand dismissively. "Whatever. I want to join the DA, Potter, and I want to join it now."

"You can leave, now," Harry said as Hermione grabbed Malfoy by the arm and began to try and drag him to the door.

He kicked her in the shin and flashed Harry a very sarcastic smile. "I want to join the DA. My little black heart has up and reformed itself. Isn't that what you've always wanted to hear, Saint Potter?" Harry walked toward him. They were glowering eye to eye.

"To tell you the truth, Malfoy, I've never particularly cared."

"Liar," Malfoy hissed.

Harry laughed in his face, but he said, "Fine. We'll see how long you last. We're doing _Expelliarmus_."

Malfoy bent down and looked straight at tiny Abdul Zanzibar. He smiled, showing all his teeth. "Will you be my partner?" Neville stepped in front of the child protectively.

Harry grabbed Malfoy above the elbow and yanked him to his feet. "You'll partner with me."

"How novel," Malfoy said.

"Everyone to the charm," Harry called over his shoulder. No one moved. They were too busy watching him and Malfoy.

Malfoy took out his wand. "You know, Potter, I already know how to do _Expelliarmus_."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Well then perhaps we should move onto more advanced things, like Patronuses?"

"I already know that, too."

"You're too good for me," Harry said sarcastically. "So what is your Patronus?"

"A fork."

"A fork?" Harry blinked.

"A pastry fork. I've always found there's something innately comforting about dessert."

"Of course, mine's not nearly as impressive as yours." Malfoy shrugged mockingly. 

"Naturally."

"But then again, I could never be as impressive as a speccy git whose only talent is convincing other people to die for him."

Harry stared. "Die for me?" He pointed at the wall. "In that case, Malfoy, why don't you go jump out that window?" The stones in the Room of Requirement's wall changed to plate glass on cue.

Malfoy took a step closer to him. "I wonder if your parents would find you quite so funny, Potter."

"Don't talk about my parents, asshole." 

"What about that mangy mutt—is it still _dogging_ you?"

Harry grabbed his collar. "If you shut up now, I might remember to change that window back into wall before I throw you through it. On second thought, I might not." Suddenly he remembered that there was still a DA meeting going on. He felt a hundred pairs of eyes on his back. "Everybody out."

"What?" Hermione said.

"Everybody out. Meeting's over. Out!"

Hermione hesitated but she must have realized that he meant it because then she said, "Let's go, people, we're done for tonight!"

"We've only been here fifteen minutes!" someone whined, but Harry could hear people being herded through the door.

Harry realized he was still holding Malfoy's collar. Malfoy was grinning. Harry yanked the collar violently enough to wipe the smirk off Malfoy's face.

"Are they gone yet?" he said.

"Yeah," Hermione said. "Ron and I are the only ones still here."

"You, too."

"What?" Ron said.

"Leave," Harry said. "I'm going to deal with this asshole by myself."

"Harry?" Hermione said.

He turned to her. "Leave!"

They actually did. Hermione shot him a wounded look as she closed the door. He'd deal with it later.

When he turned back around, Malfoy was smirking.

Ginny could feel his eyes on her from the second she stepped into the Great Hall. A quick glance in his direction proved it: he was trying to glare her down. Did he actually think she'd be intimidated? Probably. Dean was just stupid enough to believe it.

She sat down with Julie, Regan, and Olivia, her roommates, who'd grown increasingly used to her company over the past couple of weeks. She hadn't sat with Dean at a meal since Tuesday before last, and he appeared to have finally caught on. It was about time.

"Have you taken a good look at Seamus Finnegan lately?" Julie said.

"No, not really," Regan said.

Julie shook her head. "Well, you are missing out. That boy is _fine_."

"Oh, no, you know who is fine? Calvin Andrewson Avery." Olivia pronounced the name clearly and grinned.

"You mean Professor Avery?" How in the world did they know his middle name? Never mind. These were the three girls who had spent a good two hours in the bathroom getting ready for the man's class on the first day of term, so Ginny really shouldn't be surprised. And she had a hunch that that kind of reaction—"eww, how can you say that about a teacher?"—was exactly what Dean was expecting out of her. Well, screw him.

"Cal is by far the hottest professor we've ever had," Ginny said, affecting a dreamy tone. "And those pro-Quidditch player muscles…"

Regan, Julie, and Olivia were too busy adding their own details to Avery's list of attributes to wonder at Ginny's sudden interest in joining the fan club. Dean, however, seemed curious.

"Dean," Ginny said sweetly, "would you mind staring at something other than me, like your plate, maybe? It might help you with eating your dinner, since you seem to be having some trouble with your aim."

Dean picked the mashed potato dribblings off his shirt. "There, is that better?"

"Much." Ginny turned back to the girls, who were now discussing Avery's "dark, mysterious eyes" which apparently had "hypnotic depths, like his soul." She plastered a wistful smile on her face and sighed along with the rest of them.

But she could feel his eyes on her again, and it was really starting to get creepy. "Dean, will you please quit it? I don't need you staring at me like that."

Dean's expression turned sulky. "Since when do I need your permission to look at you? You're my girlfriend, for fuck's sake."

"Which doesn't give you the right to stare at me all the time, especially when I ask you to stop," Ginny pointed out.

"I'm an artist," Dean said. "If I'm staring at you, it's only because I'm trying to see you more clearly, with an artist's eyes."

Olivia sighed.

At one point, very early on in the relationship, Ginny would have been sighing right along with her. Now, that kind of artist crap just freaked her out.

"You know, that's the other thing," Ginny said. "Your whole artist deal, and how you're always drawing me."

Dean looked wounded. "I like drawing you, Ginny."

"I know, and I was fine with it the first hundred times, but after that it just started to get weird."

"Well, why didn't you say something about it?"

"I did! I said, I don't want to pose for you anymore, Dean, and you said, okay, take a break, that's fine, and then I'd catch you drawing me at breakfast the next damn morning!"

Dean's patience broke. "Oh, really? And who was it that wanted me to draw her naked riding a broomstick?"

"Shouldn't you two maybe take this somewhere else?" Regan said a little nervously, but it was too late: Ginny heard Hermione saying, "He's not here, and he wasn't at breakfast, or at Herbology yesterday…" And where Hermione was, it was typically a safe bet that Ron would be there, too. And Harry. Ginny had just long enough to register that Harry wasn't, in fact, with them before she realized that, unfortunately for Dean, Ron had heard his last comment.

"What did you just say, Dean?" Ron said, sliding into the chair opposite him. His eyes were narrow.

Dean just glared at Ginny.

"If you ever say anything like that about my sister I'll ram a broomstick up your ass." Ron's voice was quiet with rage.

Dean's expression darkened, but still he didn't say anything.

"Ron!" Hermione grabbed his arm.

"Oh, Ron, don't do that," Ginny said. "That's the way Dean likes it."

"I almost wish I WAS gay—at least then I'd be getting some!"

Just then Harry walked up to the table. His collar didn't even come close to hiding the enormous hickey on his neck.

"Hey, guys," he said. "Have I missed anything?"

"Ginny and Dean are having a row," Ginny heard Hermione say, but everyone's eyes were on Dean. He'd just grabbed Harry by the shirt. He was fingering the collar with a maniacal look in his eyes.

"Speaking of people who are getting some," Dean said. His fingers were still on Harry's collar but he was staring straight at Ginny.

It didn't take much imagination to figure out what he meant. "You stupid git, I've been here with you all dinner! How, exactly, could I have given Harry a hickey when I wasn't with him?"

When she wasn't the one giving him the hickey. But Dean wasn't thinking that clearly.

"Don't try to tell me it wasn't you, you little slut. You could have done it before dinner, during Quidditch practice, at fucking breakfast—hickeys don't fade that quickly!"

She looked at Harry's neck. "My mouth isn't anywhere near that big."

"Maybe it can stretch!" Dean yanked Harry's collar down to his shoulder blade. The hickey was huge and unmistakably not her work. There was no way Ginny's jaw could open that wide unless she broke it.

"Harry," Dean said lightly, "would you mind telling us where you got that mark on your neck?"

"A Blast-Ended Skrewt bit me," he said. "I was feeding it for Hagrid and the bloody thing bit me."

"On the neck?" Dean said incredulously.

"Also on the arm," Harry said. His gaze didn't waver from Dean's face. "Do you want to see?"

"No." He released Harry's collar. But it was obvious from Dean's expression that he didn't believe him.

Ginny didn't, either, but she didn't see any good reason to be obvious about it. If she appeared too interested in what Harry had been up to, Dean would have real evidence to use against her, instead of the circumstantial bare bones we was working with now. Better not to give him any proof.

"How, exactly, could I have caused that bite mark when a skrewt did it?" Ginny said.

Dean didn't want to openly accuse Harry of lying, she could tell that much from his expression.

"Well, Dean, if Harry's not lying, then I'm not, either."

Oh, he didn't want to give her that win, but even he could tell that further accusations would make him look less and less credible.

"It doesn't matter," Dean said. "I've seen the way you look at Michael Corner."

Ginny couldn't help it. She burst out laughing. "Maybe if you were watching me last March. Or were you already stalking me then, Dean?"

"Liking someone isn't stalking them, even less so when that someone is my girlfriend!"

"Well, you can just stop it, okay? You don't need to watch me every bloody second of the day to see where I'm going and who I'm with! It's like saying you don't trust me, except you don't even trust me enough to say the damned words to my face!"

"I can look at my girlfriend as often as I want!" Dean shouted.

"Well, then, maybe I don't want to be your girlfriend anymore," Ginny said, her voice deadly quiet.

"Maybe you shouldn't be!" Dean was apparently incapable of turning down the volume.

"All right, then," Ginny said calmly, "I'm not." Then, just to make sure he got the message, "We're through, Dean."

"Fine!" he yelled. "That's just fine with me! Fine and fucking dandy!"

Ginny stood up. "Good."

Dean was still yelling something but she couldn't understand him and she didn't care. Before the doors of the Great Hall had even swung shut behind her she could feel the tears welling up and she didn't know why.

"I think Harry's got a girlfriend," Lavender announced one night in mid-October.

Hermione's brush froze halfway down her back. _A hundred strokes every night_, her mother said, _and your hair will be shiny and beautiful._ After sixteen years of bushy, she was skeptical and a little bitter, but _patience,_ her mother said, and _faith._

"A girlfriend?" She exhaled slowly. The brush slid down her back. "Why do you think that?"

"He keeps going out late and sneaking back in later when he thinks no one is paying attention," Lavender said. "He does it all the time, and never tells anyone that he's leaving or where he's going."

"That doesn't mean anything," Hermione said matter-of-factly. _Seventy-seven, seventy-eight…_

"I've seen him do it, too," Parvati said. "And I know you have. You're always down in the Common Room so late, you can't have missed it."

"I have seen him sneak out," Hermione said, "but that doesn't mean anything. It certainly doesn't mean he's meeting anyone. Harry's always liked to go on walks late at night. He's been doing it since first year. He just wanders around and forgets how long he's been gone. Sometimes he doesn't get back until almost dawn."

"When he gets back he's nearly always flushed," Lavender said.

"Filch and Mrs. Norris are everywhere at night," Hermione said, her voice sensible, not betraying a bit of what she was thinking. "It's uncanny how they can be exactly where you don't want them to be, every time. I bet he was flushed from nervousness at having to hide from those two."

"And the hickey we saw on Harry's neck?" Lavender raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"I don't suppose you're going to say that Mrs. Norris bit him?" Parvati said.

She had been planning on "spider bite," actually, but same idea. Hermione couldn't help grinning. Parvati and Lavender laughed.

"I know you're just trying to deny this because we don't have any real proof, Hermione, but all joking aside, you're not stupid. You have to have suspected that something's going on with Harry." Lavender stared her down.

"I know what you mean," Hermione said, "but if he's got a girlfriend, he'd tell me. That's why we're best friends. If there's anything like that going on with Harry, I'm sure you'll know soon enough." She used a polite but firm tone that ensured that the conversation was over.

And it was.

Hermione finished her last five brush strokes and placed the brush on her nightstand. Only after she had drawn the curtains around her bed did she exhale: slowly, quietly.

Of course she knew something was happening with Harry. Like Lavender had said, she wasn't stupid. She'd seen everything Parvati and Lavender were talking about and more. But she hadn't been lying when she'd said that he would tell her if he had a girlfriend. That was what friends did: they talked to each other. He wouldn't keep something like that a secret.

Well, at the beginning he might. He hadn't told them about Cho Chang until pretty late in the game last year, after all. It wasn't so much that Harry meant to keep secrets as that he didn't always know when he should tell people what was happening in his life and when he shouldn't. He'd spent so long without anyone who wanted to listen to him that sometimes he still didn't realize that keeping secrets wasn't his only option.

It had been nearly a month, though, since Hermione had first noticed him coming home flushed at odd hours of the morning. Harry was seeing someone, that much was clear, and she had a fairly certain idea of who it was.

Ginny Weasley, of course.

Hermione wasn't stupid. Ginny might have gotten less awkward around Harry, but her feelings for him weren't any different. And Hermione had seen them snogging rather thoroughly in the gardens on Tuesday.

It had to be Ginny, and it made sense that Harry wouldn't have told them he was seeing her. With the way Ron had handled the Dean situation, there wasn't a chance in hell that Harry could tell Ron. And the only thing worse than not telling either Ron or Hermione about it would have been telling just Hermione. She hated keeping secrets from Ron, or from either of them, for that matter. Lying about the Time Turner all of third year had nearly killed her.

The odd hours Harry was keeping made perfect sense now, too. He couldn't very well meet up with Ginny anywhere in Gryffindor Tower and expect their relationship to stay a secret, could he?

Yes. Ginny was the answer. Hermione rolled over and fell asleep.

Ron fished the soggy newspaper out of his breakfast and dropped it by Hermione's plate. She scraped the porridge off the front page with her butter knife, revealing Sirius Black's face—his wanted poster, the same one they'd been running for three years now. She covered it with her napkin.

"Harry's not here, if that's why you're trying to hide it," Ron said. "He's still in bed." He'd woken up earlier than usual and hadn't gotten Harry up. He'd pulled back the curtains and looked in on him, but Harry looked like nothing short of Hogwarts exploding would wake him. He had been out when Ron went to sleep the night before. "What's the paper say, Hermione?" he asked.

"That? Oh. The Aurors are still looking for Sirius in Serbia."

"Actually, I was talking about that," he said, pointing at an ad for SPEW's newest members-only product, _Freedom Fritters: Save the World by Eating Breakfast!_

Hermione shook her head. "Can you ever think about anything but food, Ron?"

He glared at her. "Anyway," she continued, "you should be interested in the Aurors article. They've got half the task force in the Serbian mountains looking for Sirius—where do you suppose they'll send them next, Mongolia?"

**Notes:**

The line, "I recommend that you stop being such a faggot," comes from Old School. We know that "faggot" is an American term, but we wanted to keep the line as is.

On a similar note, we know that thorough Britpicking would call for replacing "ass" and "asshole" with "arse" and "arsehole." In this case, we consciously decided to keep the American terms. Any other Britpicking errors are accidental, however, so please let us know if you catch anything.


	9. Yak Attack

**Title:** Diagon Burning (9/20)

**Author:** **1eyedjack**

**Rating:** R

**SUMMARY: **_Chapter 9: Four postcards from Ulaanbaatar, two eel kebabs, a guest appearance by Lupin, and one corpse mauled by yaks._

**DISCLAIMER:** JKR and her publishers own the characters. We just play with them. Canon information, as always, comes from the Lexicon. Additional disclaimers at the end of the chapter.

**Author notes:** Huge thanks, as always, to reviewers and to **emerald123** and Oli and co. for the betas. **Naodrith** and Alissa Raboin looked over earlier versions of the fic.

**Diagon Burning**

**Chapter 9**

**Yak Attack**

"_ENTIRE AUROR FORCE DEPLOYED TO MONGOLIA_," Hermione read off the front page of Monday's _Daily Prophet_.

"Well, that's shitty luck, isn't it?" Ron said.

"It's not funny, Ronald."

"I never said it was. I said it was shitty."

Harry frowned over his bacon. "Why are they going to Mongolia?"

Hermione hesitated for a moment, and then reluctantly, she passed him the paper. "They're looking for Sirius." Harry's face tightened. "I know, Harry, I know, but the Ministry doesn't know he's, you know—"

"Dead?" Harry provided dully, taking the paper.

"—since there wasn't a body."

Harry's expression became more lifeless as he skimmed the article. _"Lucius Malfoy and SPEW have received credible information that wanted mass-murderer Sirius Black may be hiding in the Mongolian hinterlands," _he read aloud.

Ron was reading over Harry's shoulder. "That blurry photo that's supposed to be Sirius? I think it's a yak."

"Of course it's a yak," Hermione said. "It doesn't matter whether or not they find Sirius in Mongolia, which we all know," she looked at Harry, who avoided her eyes, "they won't. What matters is that there won't be a single Auror left here."

"_We still have the SPEW task corps to keep us safe,"_ Harry read off the paper. "Handpicked and trained by Lucius Malfoy. When did he have time for that?"

"When he was taking over the bloody Ministry." Ron grimaced. "Dad says Malfoy's moved into the Auror offices full time now. Fudge demoted Kingsley last month and all the top jobs at the Bureau are filled by SPEW wizards. Malfoy's trying to get Fudge to take Dad's office off the Auror floor. He says SPEW needs the closet space."

Harry looked across the Great Hall to the Slytherin table. Abruptly, he stood up. "I'm going to go pick a fight with Draco Malfoy."

Hermione grabbed Harry by the wrist and yanked him back; even so, she couldn't bring herself to blame him. "Finish your bacon first."

"New bruise, Potter?" Malfoy sneered as he stuck his head over Ron's shoulder in Care of Magical Creatures. Hermione glanced at him and rolled her eyes dismissively. She opened her textbook and buried herself in a chapter the rest of the class wouldn't get to for another three months. Ron hoped Malfoy would take the hint. "Walked into another wall?"

Harry didn't even turn around and look at Malfoy. "Only when I fucked you up against it."

Ron started to laugh.

"That wasn't funny, Potter," Malfoy said.

"It was as funny as any of your jokes, Malfoy."

"I wouldn't fuck you if you were the last person alive, Potter. I don't fuck glasses."

"Then I guess I won't be meeting you in the fourth floor broom closet when everyone else is at dinner."

"Hopefully your hand will make up for that." Malfoy made a lewd gesture.

"Harry has better things to do than wank off in closets, Malfoy," Ron snapped.

"If you took a good long look, Weasley, you would find that he does not." Malfoy smirked. "Potter has been lurking in closets so long I'm surprised he ever comes out of them."

Harry rolled his eyes at Ron. "Try an insult that actually applies next time, Malfoy, instead of sticking me in one of your sick fantasies."

"My only fantasy with you, Potter, involves your face and my fist."

Harry pointed to his black eye. "Too bad. The wall beat you to it. Try not to cry about it."

"I broke your nose. You should be the one crying."

"I'll break your sphincter. Then you'll cry."

"You'll cry all alone in the fourth floor broom closet when I don't show."

"Cry with relief—that I don't have to see your ugly face."

"Crying's for girls," Malfoy declared. At that moment, Hagrid burst into uncontrollable sobs. Bellowing something that sounded like, "Gra-Gra-Grawp!" he rushed out of the lesson.

The Slytherins started to laugh. Harry nodded to Ron and they ran after Hagrid. Hermione pulled herself away from the textbook and joined them.

They spent the rest of the afternoon listening to Hagrid moan over a plate of his homemade rock cakes that none of them dared eat.

Ron much preferred it to Malfoy.

"_And Creevey misses the Bludger—in my years at Hogwarts I haven't seen a team so…er…uncoordinated. I'm sure it's just a phase, guys. I have faith you can hit and catch things."_

Pansy smiled at Finnegan's commentary. "I don't, but somehow it isn't bothering me."

Draco smirked.

"You look so much like Lucius when you do that," she said. "It's hot."

"The expression or my father?" Draco didn't think he really wanted to know the answer.

"_A great block by Weasley at Keeper! That's right, Ron, show them like you did last year—wait, Brocklehurst snatches the Quaffle from Sloper, no, back to Sloper, to Kirke, to Sloper, to—Creevey, would you watch what you're doing? One of the Creeveys just whacked Sloper on the head! C'mon, Creevey, did you think he was a Bludger?"_

Pansy considered. "Both. But especially your father. Ever since the night this summer when he asked me for sexual favors I can't stop thinking about him."

"That's mildly disturbing," Draco told her.

"Well, it's true. I hear he's under consideration for _Witch Weekly's_ Sexiest Bachelor."

"He's not a bachelor."

She grinned. "Who cares? Lucius makes wheelchairs look sexy."

"_Weasley with the Quaffle, dodges a Bludger hit DIRECTLY AT HER HEAD by one of the Creeveys—great move, Ginny! She shoots, and it's…blocked by Boot at Keeper. Great shot by Weasley, though. It'll go in next time!"_

"I wasn't aware that you and my father were on a first name basis."

"Draco, darling, I never sleep with anyone with whom I'm not on a first name basis."

"Liar."

"I know, but that sounded so good and pure and Gryffindor."

"No. A Gryffindor would never _hold hands_ with someone who they weren't on a first name basis with."

"Do you speak from experience, Draco?"

He just smirked at her.

"When I dump you for your father, you may have to bag a few Gryffindors."

"_What's going on by the Ravenclaw goalposts? The Creevey brothers are—are they arguing? Save it for later, kids, there's a game going on! Turpin and Goldstein pass the Quaffle back and forth by the Gryffindor goalposts, Turpin moves towards the right goal—come on, Ron, you can block it! ...No, I guess you can't."_

"I'm sorry, Pansy, but my father would never have you. You're not blond enough."

"I'll charm my hair."

He wrapped one of her strands around his finger. "You'd look terrible as a blonde. I think I would have to stop fucking you."

Pansy took her hair from Draco's hand and stared at it. Her brow furrowed. "Maybe I should charm my hair red."

"Wrong answer." Draco said. "If I wanted to fuck a Weasley, I would."

Pansy made a face. "Aren't you related to the Weasleys? Incest is always the wrong answer, Draco."

"_I don't believe it, the Creeveys are still arguing! The Ravenclaw Beaters aren't wasting any time—come on, guys, Potter almost got knocked out back there! Weasley passes to Kirke who passes to Sloper—one of the Creeveys just whacked the other on the head—Quaffle back to Kirke, to Sloper, to, surprise, surprise, Kirke—"_

"I can assure you that we are not related." Draco paused. "Not very related, anyway," he amended. "It's all through the Blacks and extremely distant."

"That's really unfortunate, isn't it, as you're also sort of related to Potter."

"Sirius Black isn't a relative of mine, if that's what you mean. His mother disowned him when she heard he was a Gryffindor."

"_And Potter goes into a vertical dive! Has he seen the Snitch? He's certainly acting like it! Go get it, Harry! He's reaching out, grabbing for it—no, he's grabbing a Creevey, who seems to have fallen off his broom—"_

"He's still Potter's godfather, which gives you a sort-of family relation."

"Pansy, you're being disgusting. I will stop associating with you if you don't desist."

"That's okay," Pansy said, "because I'll still have Lucius."

"Really, Pansy, why can't you fantasize about Professor Avery like the other girls?"

"Oh, I did, but the fantasy ended with me leaving my underwear in his office, which I already did. And don't you want to hear about how your father screams when he—"

Someone burst out laughing in the row behind them, stopping Pansy from finishing that thought. Thank Merlin. He and Pansy both turned. Theodore Nott was sitting behind them, moving from uproarious laughter into hiccoughing giggles.

"I'm sorry, Parkinson, but that's really just too good."

"Avery's office? Yes, I know."

"No, no…" Apparently he wasn't able to stop laughing.

Pansy wasn't smiling. "What do you mean, then, Nott?"

"You're a fool if you think Lucius Malfoy would want anything to do with a Newblood like you."

"I think I'm a better judge of what Malfoys do and do not want, Nott," Draco said coldly.

Nott sniffed at Pansy. "Your judgment is obviously impaired, Malfoy."

"I'm not a Newblood, Nott," Pansy said. "I don't have to defend myself to you."

"Then why are you doing it?" he sneered.

"Because the information's taking so long to get through your thick skull," Draco said. Then, for emphasis, he added, "You little wanker."

"A Newblood's daughter is still a Newblood," Nott hissed.

"Believe me," Draco said, "Pansy's as much a pureblood as I am. More so than you, I'd say."

"The Notts have never associated with Mudbloods," Nott snapped, with a disdainful sneer at Pansy. "And we won't tolerate those who pretend that time will undo a taint."

"Frankly, Nott, I won't tolerate your face." Draco snapped his fingers and Crabbe and Goyle, sitting a few rows ahead of them and eating eel kebabs, grunted to attention. They each grabbed Nott by a shoulder and dragged him off in the general direction of the broom shed.

Nott started to squeal. Draco felt extraordinarily pleased. His euphoria lasted for about four minutes, until Potter caught the Snitch.

When Harry got the owl from Lupin asking to meet him in the Common Room fire that Friday at midnight, he supposed Lupin wanted to update him on what the Order was doing. There was no mention of Ron or Hermione in the letter but Harry told them about the meeting anyway. Lupin—and the rest of the Order, for that matter—knew where he stood with them. So Harry didn't go out at his usual time, but instead waited in the Common Room with Ron and Hermione. It slowly emptied as the clock struck midnight. On cue, Lupin's head popped into the fire.

"Harry!" he said. "…and Ron and Hermione. Hi. I didn't know all three of you were going to be here."

Harry opened his mouth to tell Lupin that the Order could get over it, anything they told him would go to Hermione and Ron, too, but Hermione was quicker.

"We were actually just going to bed, weren't we, Ron?" Hermione said with a meaningful glance in Ron's direction.

Harry couldn't for the life of him have said what Hermione meant by that look. Apparently, Ron didn't either. "No, we weren't." Ron said.

"Aren't you tired, Ron?" Hermione snapped.

"Er, no?" Ron blinked.

It was obviously the wrong answer. "I want to show you something in your dorm, then." She pointed at the stairs. "Wait for me." Looking confused, Ron went. Hermione bent close to Harry. "If you want to talk to Professor Lupin about what's been going on in your life, and, you know, things that are happening with people who are related to Ron, I think you should, Harry," she said.

Harry blinked. "Er, okay?"

"Because, you should talk to somebody," Hermione said, and squeezed his arm in what she probably thought was a supportive gesture.

"Thanks," Harry said, feeling embarrassed. "Goodnight."

Ron and Hermione disappeared upstairs.

"I was going to tell you that you could bugger off if you wouldn't let them stay," Harry said, "but erm."

"You can tell Ron and Hermione anything I say, Harry," Lupin said. "Not that you need me to tell you that to do it. But I really wanted to talk to you."

"I know."

"How's the school year going?"

"It's going," Harry said. "Snape hasn't managed to expel me yet."

"You know, usually I try to encourage students to refer to their teachers as Professor, but I doubt it would do much good to tell you to call him Professor Snape."

"It wouldn't," Harry agreed.

"So how's everything else? Hogsmeade weekend this Saturday, I've heard. You'll be going, won't you?"

That was the first Harry had heard of it. "Suppose so."

"What about Quidditch?"

"We lost to Slytherin 170-160 a few weeks ago."

"What happened?"

"I caught the Snitch," Harry said. He really didn't want to tell Lupin the whole story, so he pressed on, "What have you been doing? Stuff with the Order?"

"Well, you know I can't tell you everything, Harry, but—"

"Yeah. That's okay. Did you hear about the Aurors being sent to Mongolia?"

Lupin suddenly looked uncomfortable. "Erm, yes, I did hear something."

"What are they doing in Mongolia?"

Lupin swallowed. "Nothing."

"Nothing you're going to tell me or just plain nothing?"

"Nothing of interest."

"I'm asking. I'm interested. You can't hide things from me forever."

"Please believe me, Harry, when I say what I'm hiding—which is nothing, incidentally—is for your own good. You really don't want to know."

"I'm not a child anymore."

"I know that."

"Sirius would have told me."

"Don't play that card with me, Harry."

Harry glared at him. "I need to know."

"Outside of the yak breeding community, Harry, absolutely nothing is going on in Mongolia."

"You have to have heard something."

"Well, yes," Lupin said, "that's exactly the problem."

"What have you heard?"

"Listen to me very carefully, Harry, and hear what I'm saying: you really don't want any part of this."

Was there anything that awful happening in Mongolia? Harry doubted it. All he knew about the place was that it was a long way away and cold.

"You already said that, and I already told you that I can handle it," Harry said impatiently. "Tell me what's going on."

"Just remember later, when you're scarred for life, that you asked—no, begged—for this." Lupin's head disappeared from the fire.

He returned a second later carrying a stack of what looked like postcards.

"It starts off fairly tame," he said, picking up the first one and beginning to read. The picture on the front showed a large yellow lump of hair that Harry guessed was a yak.

"_Dear Remus_," he read, "_We just arrived. I'm mailing this from the Ulaanbaatar Floo port. SPEW orders are that we must split up and head off into the mountains in search of Sirius. I'd rather look for you instead. _

"_Thinking of you, Tonks."_

Harry felt angrier than he had when he had first read the _Prophet_ article about Mongolia. "SPEW is giving the Aurors orders?"

"Lucius Malfoy and SPEW absorbed the Auror Bureau at the beginning of the fall," Lupin said. "But honestly, Harry, that's probably the least disturbing thing about these postcards." He picked up the next one. It showed an angry-looking man with a long mustache and a big sword riding either a yak or a shag carpet, Harry couldn't decide which.

"_Dear Remus, my favorite canine,_

"_SPEW told us that Sirius would probably be disguised as a local, or possibly a yak, but so far no luck finding him. The locals look like yaks—maybe that's why it's so hard to tell them apart? You're the only man I know who looks so good covered in that much fur._

"_Missing you and your wolfish smile, Tonks."_

Harry looked at Lupin. "It gets worse?"

Lupin looked grim. "We haven't even started yet."

He pulled out the next postcard, which featured, surprisingly, a yak, and an old-looking building, undoubtedly of local importance.

"_Dearest Remus, _

"_The weather is cold, but my heart warms at the thought of you. I felt alone in my tent last night until I heard wolves howling in the distance and I thought more about you. I think about you all the time. I hope you feel the same way—I think we have this mutual animal attraction thing._

"_Rrrarw! Tonks."_

Harry blinked. "She signed it with a growl."

Lupin picked up the next-to-last postcard. The cover was charmed to show three stick figures embracing. One was a yak, the second unmistakable with purple spiky hair, and the other had pointy ears and fangs. Little pink hearts danced around the card. "On top of her notable artistic talent," Lupin remarked dryly, "she apparently writes poetry."

"You're kidding."

"I only wish."

Harry looked at the card carefully. "Is she trying to suggest a threesome with a yak?"

"Even that would be better than her poetry. Listen to this:

"_My dearest muse,_

"_I've been thinking about you every waking moment. You have inspired me to become a poet. I awoke from a steaming dream about you and wrote this poem. It is called _"O Wolfman, My Wolfman."

"_O Wolfman, My Wolfman_

_Your eyes are yellow_

_Each time I see your furry beard_

_It makes me want to bellow."_

"You don't have a beard," Harry said.

"I know." He continued reading.

"_O Wolfman, My Wolfman_

_My soul within me throbs_

_Whenever you are gone_

_I am filled with sobs._

"_O Wolfman, My Wolfman_

_The heart within me groans_

_I think of you at night_

_And make many little moans._

"_O Wolfman, My Wolfman_

_I hope you don't think me piggy_

_But every time I see your snout_

_I just want to get jiggy!_

"_I know you cannot reply to these postcards from my soul, but I can hear the wolves' voices on the wind and I imagine your loving howls amidst their chorus. I cannot wait to join with you in howling our love for one another._

"_Love, Nymphadora."_

Harry was utterly speechless. "She didn't write another." It was more a plea than a statement.

Lupin, remarkably calm for his ordeal, picked up the last card. "This came in the mail today."

"_Remus—_

"_When Tonks told me she was venturing off into the Altai Mountains to bond with the wolves, I thought she was joking. I regret to inform you that she has been killed in an avalanche. We recovered her body a little less than an hour ago and although it has been partially eaten by wild yaks, it is unmistakably Tonks."_

"I thought yaks were herbivores," Harry cut in.

"I suppose they made an exception," Lupin said, before continuing with the letter. _"You may not know this, but Tonks recently asked me to act as a witness to her change of will. She named you as her sole inheritor and chief executor of her estate. All of her property now goes to you._

"_I don't know what was going on between the two of you, but I express my deepest regrets at your loss. I hope Tonks is in a better place. That isn't a particularly hard request after Mongolia._

"_Sincerely, Kingsley Shacklebolt."_

Harry didn't know how to respond. "That's...really unfortunate," he said lamely.

"Yeah," Lupin said.

Harry almost didn't want to ask, but, "Did you hear anything more?"

Lupin handed him another piece of paper. "Her will came in the mail a few hours later."

Harry scanned the will. "She left you her house?"

"And her entire life savings. Which is actually embarrassingly large, but then again, she was a Black."

"Is the house nice?"

"No. Nasty little place in Surrey."

"You've been there?" Harry asked.

"I went there with Sirius once," Lupin said. "It was an old Black family hunting lodge."

Harry blinked. "What is there to hunt in Surrey?"

"Muggles," Lupin said.

"Oh," Harry replied. "That's, uh—"

"Despicable?"

"I was going to say just the sort of thing the Blacks would do, but yeah, same idea."

"Don't understate it, Harry."

"Are you, um, when's the funeral?"

"Next Tuesday," Lupin said. "At the Ministry chapel."

"There's a Ministry chapel?"

"It's in the basement of Westminster Abbey," Lupin said. "Nobody notices. The Muggles think it's a wine cellar."

"Oh," Harry said. "Clever." He thought for a second. "Do churches _have_ wine cellars?"

"I don't think so." Lupin said. "Except maybe in Ireland."

"I'm sorry about Tonks," Harry said. "Even though she stalked you."

"Yes," Lupin said.

"And sent you scary postcards."

"That too."

"Can I have the Wolfman one to show Ron?"

"No."

"Just checking," Harry said. "Are you going to live in Tonks's house?"

"I don't think so," Lupin replied. "It's just like Grimmauld Place, only with more house-elf heads mounted on the walls. When they ran out of Muggles, the Blacks hunted their house elves."

"Oh," Harry said. "Hadn't they heard of deer?"

"Apparently not," Lupin said. "And anyway, I'm afraid of leaving Kreacher alone in Grimmauld place. I caught him trying to saw his own head off with the coffee grinder the other day, just so he can get it mounted on a plaque. He's getting tired of waiting to die."

"Just kill the thing already. That would make everyone happier, including it," Harry suggested. "Actually, wait till Christmas break and I'll kill Kreacher myself."

"I hope you know I do not endorse these violent impulses, Harry," Lupin said with a fond smile.

They sat there for a few moments, companionably quiet. The clock struck one. "I should be going," Lupin said.

"I'd say have fun at the funeral, but um," Harry trailed off. "Tell Tonks's family I'm sorry."

"I'll keep you in mind," Lupin said, and popped out.

Harry walked up to the dormitory and went to bed earlier than he had in a week.


End file.
